^  PRINCETON,    N.    J.  <f* 

)^{)         ■ 


J  vision. 


helf., 


THE   BAMPTON   LECTURES 

FOR    M.DCCC.LXXXIV. 


THE    RELATIONS 


BETWEEN 


RELIGION  A^J)   SCIENCE 

EIGHT    LECTURES 

PREACHED  BEFORE  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  OXFORD 
IN  THE  YEAR  1884 

ON  THE  FOUNDATION  OF  THE  LATE  REV.  JOHN  BAMPTOI^rM.A!)  L^ZCTL 

CANON   OF   SALISBURY 


y/^  ^  BY   THE    RIGHT   EEV. 

FREDEKICK,  /LORD    BISHOP    OF    EXETER 
/v. 


MACMILLAN    AND    CO. 
1884 

\_  All  rights  reserved  ] 


TRINTED  BY  HORACE  HART,  PRINTER  TO  THE  UNIVERSITY 


•i\     rn  T"  *7  iT,  T  r\  r-^  "  r\  ■r'.  *• 

-<\     ^X    .■':    ^^      J^»,   '^;    ',^'     ',    '-     '   ..    ■■. 

r 

EXTRACT 

FROM    THE   LAST  WILL   AND    TESTAMENT 

OF    THE    LATE 

REV.  JOHN   BAMPTON, 

CANON    OF    SALISBURY. 

-"  I  give  and  bequeath  my  Lands   and  Estates  to 


"  the  Chancellor,  Masters,  and  Scholars  of  the  Univer- 
"sity  of  Oxford  for  ever,  to  have  and  to  hold  all  and 
"singular  the  said  Lands  or  Estates  upon  trust,  and 
"  to  the  intents  and  purposes  hereinafter  mentioned ; 
"that  is  to  say,  I  will  and  appoint  that  the  Vice- 
"  Chancellor  of  the  University  of  Oxford  for  the  time 
"  being  shall  take  and  receive  all  the  rents,  issues,  and 
"profits  thereof,  and  (after  all  taxes,  reparations,  and 
"necessary  deductions  made)  that  he  pay  all  the  re- 
"  mainder  to  the  endowment  of  eight  Divinity  Lecture 
"  Sermons,  to  be  established  for  ever  in  the  said  Univer- 
"  sity,  and  to  be  performed  in  the  manner  following : 

"  I  direct  and  appoint,  that,  upon  the  first  Tuesday 
"in  Easter  Term,  a  Lecturer  be  yearly  chosen  by  the 
"  Heads  of  Colleges  only,  and  by  no  others,  in  the  room 
"  adjoining  to  the  Printing-House,  between  the  hours  of 
"  ten  in  the  morning  and  two  in  the  afternoon,  to 
"  preach  eight  Divinity  Lecture  Sermons,  the  year 
"  following,  at  St.  Mary's  in  Oxford,  between  the  coni- 

a3 


\'l      Extract  fro7n  CanoJi  Bamptons  Will, 


"menccment  of  the  last  month  in  Lent  Term,  and  the 
''  end  of  the  third  week  in  Act  Term. 

"  Also  I  direct  and  appoint,  that  the  eight  Divinity 
"  Lecture  Sermons  shall  be  preached  upon  either  of 
"  the  following"  Subjects — to  confirm  and  establisb  the 
•'  Christian  Faith,  and  to  confute  all  heretics  and 
•'  schismatics — upon  the  divine  authority  of  the  holy 
"  Scriptures — upon  the  authority  of  the  writings  of  the 
"  primitive  Fathers,  as  to  the  faith  and  practice  of  the 
"  primitive  Church — upon  the  Divinity  of  our  Lord  and 
"  Saviour  Jesus  Christ — upon  the  Divinity  of  the  Holy 
"  Ghost — upon  the  Articles  of  the  Christian  Faith,  as 
"  comprehended  in  the  Apostles'  and  Nicene  Creeds. 

"  Also  I  direct,  that  thirty  copies  of  the  eight  Divinity 
"  Lecture  Sermons  shall  be  always  printed,  within  two 
"  months  after  they  are  preached  ;  and  one  copy  shall  be 
"  given  to  the  Chancellor  of  the  University,  and  one 
"  copy  to  the  Head  of  every  College,  and  one  copy  to 
"  the  Mayor  of  the  city  of  Oxford,  and  one  copy  to  be 
'•])ut  into  the  Bodleian  Library;  and  the  expenses  of 
•'  ])rinting  them  shall  be  paid  out  of  the  revenue  of  the 
"  Land  or  Estates  given  for  establishing  the  Divinit}^ 
"  Lecture  Sermons  ;  and  the  preacher  shall  not  be  paid, 
"  nor  be  entitled  to  the  revenue,  before  they  are  printed. 

"Also  I  direct  and  appoint,  that  no  person  shall  be 
"  qualified  to  preach  the  Divinity  Lecture  Sermons, 
"  unless  he  hath  taken  the  degree  of  Master  of  Arts 
"  at  least,  in  one  of  the  two  Universities  of  Oxford  or 
"  Cambridge  ;  and  that  the  same  person  shall  never 
"  preach  the  Divinity  Lecture  Sermons  twice." 


CONTENTS. 

LECTURE  I. 

THE  ORIGIN  AND  NATURE  OF  SCIENTIFIC  BELIEF. 

Psalm  civ.  24. 

0  Lord,  how  manifold  are  Thy  works  :  in  wisdom  hast  Thou 
made  them  all ;  the  earth  is  full  of  Thy  riches. 


PAGE 


The  subject  introduced :  Scientific  belief.  Mathe- 
matics and  Metaphysics  excluded.  The  Postulate  of 
Science  :  the  Uniformity  of  Nature.  Hume's  account 
of  it.  Kant's  account  of  it.  Insufficiency  of  both 
accounts.  Science  traced  back  to  observation  of  the 
Human  Will.  The  development  of  Science  from  this 
origin.  The  increasing  generality  of  the  Postulate  : 
which  nevertheless  can  never  attain  to  universality     .  i 

LECTURE    IL 

THE  ORIGIN  AND  NATURE  OF  RELIGIOUS  BELIEF. 

Genesis  i.  27. 

So  God  created  man  in  His  own  image,  in  the  image  of  God 
created  He  him. 

The  voice  within.  The  objection  of  the  alleged  rela- 
tivity of  knowledge.  Absolute  knowledge  of  our  own 
personal  identity.  Failure  to  show  this  to  be  relative ; 
in  particular  by  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer.  The  Moral 
Law.  The  command  to  live  according  to  that  Law ; 
Duty.  The  command  to  believe  in  the  supremacy  of 
that  Law;  the  lower  Faith.  The  Last  Judgment. 
The  hope  of  Immortality.     The  personification  of  the 


viii  Co7itents. 

PAGE 

Moral  Law  in  Almighty  God;  the  higher  Faith. 
The  t^piritual  faculty  the  recipient  of  Eevelation,  if 
any  be  made.  The  contrast  between  Religion  and 
Science     ....•••••        35 

LECTURE    III. 

APPARENT  CONFLICT  BETWEEN  SCIENCE  AND 
RELIGION  ON  FREE-WILL. 

Genesis  i.  27. 

So  God  created  man  in  His  own  image,  in  the  image  of  God 
created  He  him. 

Contradiction  of  Free-Will  to  doctrine  of  Unifor- 
mity. Butler's  examination  of  the  question.  Hume's 
solution.  Kant's  solution.  Determinism.  The  real 
result  of  examination  of  the  facts.  Interference  of  the 
will  always  possible,  but  comparatively  rare.  The 
need  of  a  fixed  nature  for  our  self-discipline,  and  so 
for  our  spiritual  life  .  .  .  .  .  .  .67 


LECTURE    IV. 

APPARENT  CONFLICT  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  THE 
DOCTRINE  OF  EVOLUTION. 

Romans  i.  20. 

For  the  imisible  things  0/ Him  from  the  creation  of  the  world 
are  clearly  seen,  being  understood  by  the  things  that  are 
made,  even  His  eternal  power  and  Godhead. 

Foundation  of  the  doctrine  of  Evolution.  Great 
development  in  recent  times.  Objection  felt  by  many 
religious  men.  Alleged  to  destroy  argument  from 
design.  Paley's  argument  examined.  Doctrine  of 
Evolution  adds  force  to  the   argument,  and  removes 


Contents.  ix 


PAGE 


objections    to    it.       Argument    from    progress ;    from 
beauty;    from  unity.     The  conflict  not  real  .  •       97 

LECTURE    V. 

REVELATION  THE  MEANS  OF  DEVELOPING  AND 
COMPLETING  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

Hebrews  i.  i. 

God.,  who  at  sundry  times  and  in  divers  manners  spake  in 
time  past  to  the  Fathers  hy  the  Prophets,  hath  in  these  last 
days  S2)oken  to  us  by  His  Son. 

The  evolution  of  Knowledge.  Does  not  affect  the 
truth  of  Science.  Nor  of  Eeligion.  Special  charac- 
teristic of  evolution  of  Eeligious  Knowledge,  that  it 
is  due  to  Revelation.  All  higher  Religions  have 
claimed  to  be  Revelations.  The  evolution  of  Reli- 
gious Knowledge  in  the  Old  Testament ;  yet  the 
Old  Testament  a  Revelation.  Still  more  the  New 
Testament.  The  miraculous  element  in  Revelation. 
Its  place  and  need.  Harmony  of  this  mode  of  evo- 
lution with  the  teaching  of  the  Spiritual  Faculty  .      125 

LECTURE    VI. 

APPARENT  COLLISION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND  THE 
DOCTRINE  OF  EVOLUTION. 

Psalm  c.  3. 

Know  ye  that  the  Lord  He  is  God :  it  is  He  that  hath 
made  us,  and  not  we  ourselves. 

Evolution  examined.  The  formation  of  the  habit- 
able world.  The  formation  of  the  creatures  which 
inhabit  it.  Transmission  of  characteristics.  Varia- 
tions perpetually  introduced.  Natural  selection.  On 
the  other  side,  life  not  yet  accounted  for  by  Evolution. 


X  Contents. 

PAGE 

Cause  of  variations  not  yet  examined.  Moral  Law 
incapable  of  being  evolved.  Account  given  in  Genesis 
not  at  variance  with  doctrine  of  Evolution.  Evolution 
of  man  not  inconsistent  with  dignity  of  humanity         .      159 

LECTURE    VII. 

APPARENT  COLLISION  OF  SCIENCE  WITH  THE  CLAIM 
TO  SUPERNATURAL  POWER. 

St.  John  xiv.  II. 

Believe  Me  that  I  am  in  the  Father,  and.  the  Father  in  Me  : 
or  else  believe  Me  for  the  very  works^  sake. 

The  claim  to  work  miracles  parallel  to  the  freedom 
of  the  will.  The  miracles  of  Revelation  need  not  be 
miracles  of  Science.  Our  Lord's  Eesurrection,  and 
His  miracles  of  healing,  possibly  not  miraculous  in  the 
scientific  sense.  Different  aspect  of  miracles  now  and 
at  the  time  when  the  Revelation  was  given.  Miracles 
attested  by  the  Apostles,  by  our  Lord's  character,  by 
our  Lord's  power.  Nature  of  evidence  required  to 
prove  miracles;  not  such  as  to  put  physical  above 
spiritual  evidence ;  not  such  as  to  be  unsuited  to  their 
own  day.  Impossibility  of  demonstrating  universal 
uniformity.  Revelation  no  obstacle  to  the  progress  of 
Science     .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .         .191 

LECTURE    VIIL 

THE  CONCLUSION  OF  THE  ARGUMENT. 

I  Corinthians  xii.  3. 

No  man  can  say  that  Jesus  is  the  Lord,  hut  by  the 
Uoly  Ghost. 

Uniformity  of  nature  not  demonstrated,  but  estab- 
lished, except  in  two  cases ;  the  interference  of  human 


Contents.  xl 


PAGE 


will  and  of  Divine  Will.  The  exception  no  bar  to  the 
progress  of  Science.  Unity  to  be  found  not  in  the 
physical  world,  but  in  the  physical  and  moral  com- 
bined. The  Moral  Law  rests  on  itself.  Our  recog- 
nition of  it  on  our  own  character  and  choice.  But  we 
expect  it  to  show  its  marks  in  the  physical  world: 
and  these  are  the  purpose  visible  in  Creation,  the 
effects  produced  by  Revelation.  Nevertheless  a  demand 
for  more  physical  evidence  ;  but  the  physical  cannot 
be  allowed  to  overshadow  the  spiritual.  Dangers  to 
believers  from  leaning  this  way  :  superstition ;  blind- 
ness ;  stagnation.  The  guarantee  for  spiritual  percep- 
tiveness  :  to  take  Jesus  as  the  Lord  of  the  conscience, 
the  heart,  the  will -223 


LECTURE  I. 

THE    ORIGIN    AND    NATURE    OF 
SCIENTIFIC    BELIEF. 

•'  O  Lord,  how  manifold  are  Thy  works :  In  wisdom  hast 
Thou  made  them  all;  the  earth  is  full  of  Tliy  riches.' 
— Psalm  civ.  24. 

ri^HOSE  who  believe  that  the  creation  and 
-*-  government  of  the  world  are  the  work  of 
a  Being  Whom  it  is  their  duty  to  love  with 
all  their  hearts.  Who  loves  them  with  a  love 
beyond  all  other  love,  to  Whom  they  look  for 
guidance  now  and  unending  happiness  hereafter, 
have  a  double  motive  for  studying  the  forms 
and  operations  of  Nature ;  because  over  and 
above  whatever  they  may  gain  of  the  purest 
and  highest  pleasure  in  the  study,  and  whatever 
men  may  gain  of  material  comfort  in  a  thousand 
forms  from  the  results  of  the  studv,  thev  can- 
not  but  have   always    present   to   their   minds 

B  2 


Origin  and  Nature  of  [Lect. 


the  thought,  tliat  all  these  things  are  revelations 
of  His  character,  and  to  know  them  is  in  a  very 
real  measure  to  know  Him.  The  behever  in 
God,  if  he  have  the  faculty  and  the  opportunity, 
cannot  find  a  more  proper  employment  of  time 
and  labour  and  thought  than  the  study  of  the 
ways  in  which  God  works  and  the  things  which 
God  has  made.  Among  religious  men  we  ought 
to  expect  to  find  the  most  patient,  the  most 
truth -seeking,  the  most  courageous  of  men  of 
science. 

We  know  that  it  is  not  always  so  ;  and  that 
on  the  contrary  Science  and  Eeligion  seem  very 
often  to  be  the  most  determined  foes  to  each 
other  that  can  be  found.  The  scientific  man 
often  asserts  that  he  cannot  find  God  in  Science; 
and  the  religious  man  often  asserts  that  he 
cannot  find  Science  in  God.  Each  often  believes 
himself  to  be  in  possession,  if  not  of  the  whole 
truth,  at  any  rate  of  all  the  truth  that  it  is 
most  important  to  possess.  Science  seems  to 
despise  religion ;  and  religion  to  fear  and  con- 
demn Science.  Eeligion,  which  certainly  ought 
to  put  truth  at  the  highest,  is  charged  with 
refusing  to   acknowledge  truth  that  has   been 


I,]  Scientific  Belief, 


proved.  And  Science,  which  certainly  ought 
to  insist  on  demonstrating  every  assertion  which 
it  makes,  is  charged  with  giving  the  rein  to 
the  imagination  and  treating  the  merest  specu- 
lations as  well-established  facts. 

To  propose  to  reconcile  these  opposites  would 
be  a  task  which  hardly  any  sane  man  would 
undertake.  It  would  imply  a  claim  to  be  able 
to  rise  at  once  above  both,  and  see  the  truth 
which  included  all  that  both  could  teach.  But 
it  is  a  very  useful  undertaking,  and  not  beyond 
the  reach  of  thoughtful  inquiry  by  an  ordinary 
man,  to  examine  the  relations  between  the  two, 
and  tiius  to  help  not  a  few  to  find  a  way  for 
themselves  out  of  the  perplexity.  And  this 
inquiry  may  well  begin  by  asking  what  is  the 
oriofin  and  nature  of  scientific  belief  on  the  one 
hand  and  of  religious  belief  on  the  other.  In 
this  Lecture  I  propose  to  deal  with  the  former. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  include  in  the  Science 
of  which  I  am  to  speak  either  Mathematics  or 
Metaphysics.  In  as  far  as  I  need  touch  on  what 
belongs  to  either,  it  will  be  only  for  the  purpose 
of  answering  objections  or  of  excluding  what 
is  irrelevant.     And  the  consequent  restriction  of 


Origin  and  Naticre  of  [Lect. 


our  consideration  to  the  Science  which  concerns 
itself  with  Nature  greatly  simplifies  the  task 
that  I  have  undertaken.  For  it  will  be  at  once 
admitted  in  the  present  day  by  all  but  a  very 
few  that  the  source  of  all  scientific  knowledge 
of  this  kind  is  to  be  found  in  the  observations 
of  the  senses,  including  under  that  word  both 
the  bodily  senses  which  tell  us  all  we  know  of 
things  external,  and  that  internal  sense  by  which 
we  know  all  or  nearly  all  that  takes  place  within 
the  mind  itself.  And  so  also  will  it  be  admitted 
that  the  Supreme  Postulate,  without  which 
scientific  knowledge  is  impossible,  is  the  Uni- 
formity of  Nature. 

Science  lays  claim  to  no  revelations.  No 
voice  of  authority  declares  what  substances 
there  are  in  the  world,  what  are  the  properties 
of  those  substances,  what  are  the  effects  and 
operations  of  those  properties.  No  traditions 
handed  down  from  past  ages  can  do  anything 
more  than  transmit  to  us  observations  made  in 
those  times,  which,  so  far  as  we  can  trust  them, 
we  may  add  to  the  observations  made  in  our 
own  times.  The  materials  in  short  which 
Science  has  to  handle  are  obtained  by  experience. 


I.]  Scie7itijic  Belief,  7 

But  on  the  other  hand  Science  can  deal  with 
these  materials  only  on  the  condition  that  they 
are  reducible  to  invariable  laws.  If  any  ob- 
servation made  by  the  senses  is  not  capable  of 
being  brought  under  the  laws  which  are  found 
to  govern  all  other  observations,  it  is  not  yet 
brought  under  the  dominion  of  Science.  It  is 
not  yet  explained,  nor  understood.  As  far  as 
Science  is  concerned,  it  may  be  called  as  yet 
non-existent.  It  is  for  this  very  reason  possible 
that  the  examination  of  it  may  be  of  the  very 
greatest  importance.  To  explain  what  has 
hitherto  received  no  explanation  constitutes  the 
very  essence  of  scientific  progress.  The  ob- 
servation may  be  imperfect,  and  may  at  once 
become  explicable  as  soon  as  it  is  made  com- 
plete ;  or,  what  is  of  far  more  value,  it  may  be 
an  instance  of  the  operation  of  a  new  law  not 
previously  known,  modifying  and  perhaps  ab- 
sorbing the  law  up  to  that  time  accepted.  When 
it  was  first  noticed  in  Galileo's  time  that  water 
would  not  ascend  in  the  suction  pipe  of  a  pump 
to  a  greater  height  than  32  feet,  the  old  law 
that  nature  abhors  a  vacuum  was  modified,  and 
the  reasons  why  and  the  conditions  under  which 


8  Origin  and  Natui'e  of  [Lect. 

Nature  abhors  a  vacuum  were  discovered.  The 
suction  of  fluids  was  brought  under  the  general 
law  of  mechanical  pressure.  The  doctrine  that 
Nature  abhorred  a  vacuum  had  been  a  fair 
generalization  and  expression  of  the  facts  of 
this  kind  that  up  to  that  time  had  been  ob- 
served. A  new  fact  was  observed  which  would 
not  fall  under  the  rule.  The  examination  of 
this  fact  led  to  the  old  rule  being  superseded ; 
and  Science  advanced  a  great  step  at  once.  So 
in  our  own  day  was  the  planet  Neptune  dis- 
covered by  the  observation  of  certain  facts  which 
could  not  be  squared  with  the  facts  previously 
observed  unless  the  Law  of  Gravitation  was  to 
be  corrected.  The  result  in  this  case  was  not 
the  discovery  of  a  new  Law  but  of  a  new 
Planet ;  and  consequently  a  great  confirmation 
of  the  old  Law.  But  in  each  case  and  in  every 
similar  case  the  investigation  of  the  newly  ob- 
served fact  proceeds  on  the  assumption  that 
Nature  will  be  found  uniform,  and  on  no  other 
assumption  can  Science  proceed  at  all. 

Now  it  is  this  assumption  which  must  be  first 
examined.  What  is  its  source?  What  is  its 
justification  %     What,  if  any,  are  its  limits  \ 


I.]  Scientific  Belief,  9 

It  is  not  an  assumption  that  belongs  to 
Science  only.  It  is  in  some  form  or  other  at 
the  bottom  of  all  our  daily  life.  We  eat  our 
food  on  the  assumption  that  it  wiU  nourish  us 
to-day  as  it  nourished  us  yesterday.  We  deal 
with  our  neighbours  in  the  belief  that  we  may 
safely  trust  tliose  now  whom  we  have  trusted 
and  safely  trusted  heretofore.  We  never  take 
a  journey  without  assuming  that  wood  and  iron 
will  hold  a  carriage  together,  that  wheels  will 
roll  upon  axles,  that  steam  will  expand  and 
drive  the  piston  of  an  engine,  that  porters  and 
stokers  and  engine-drivers  will  do  their  ac- 
customed duties.  Our  crops  are  sown  in  the 
belief  that  the  earth  will  work  its  usual  chemistry, 
that  heat  and  light  and  rain  will  come  in  their 
turn  and  have  their  usual  effects,  and  the 
harvest  will  be  ready  for  our  gathering  in  the 
autumn.  Look  on  while  a  man  is  tried  for  his 
life  before  a  jury.  Every  tittle  of  the  evidence 
is  valued  both  by  the  judge  and  jury  according 
to  its  agreement  or  disagreement  with  what  we 
believe  to  be  the  laws  of  Nature,  and  if  a  witness 
asserts  that  something  happened  wliich,  as  far 
as  we  know,  never  happened  at  any  other  time 


lo  Origin  and  Natter e  of  [Lect. 

since  the  world  began,  we  set  his  evidence  aside 
as  incredible.  And  the  prisoner  is  condemned 
if  the  facts  before  us,  interpreted  on  the  assump- 
tion that  the  ordinary  laws  of  Nature  have  held 
their  course,  appear  to  prove  his  guilt. 

What  right  have  we  to  make  such  an  assump- 
tion as  this '? 

The  question  was  first  clearly  put  by  Hume, 
and  was  handled  by  him  with  singular  lucidity; 
but  his  answer,  though  very  near  the  truth, 
was  not  so  expressed  as  to  set  the  question 
at  rest. 

The  main  relation  in  which  the  uniformity 
of  Nature  is  observed  is  that  of  cause  and 
effect.  Hume  examines  this  and  maintains  that 
there  is  absolutely  nothing  contained  in  it  but 
the  notion  of  invariable  sequence.  Two  phe- 
nomena are  invariably  found  connected  toge- 
ther; the  prior  is  spoken  of  as  the  cause,  the 
posterior  as  the  effect.  But  there  is  absolutely 
nothing  in  the  former  to  define  its  relation  to 
the  latter,  except  that  when  the  former  is 
observed  the  latter,  as  far  as  we  know,  invari- 
ably follows.  A  ball  hits  another  ball  of  equal 
size,  both  being  free  to  move.     There  is  nothing 


I.]  Scientific  Belief,  1 1 


by  which  prior  to  experience  we  can  determine 
what  will  happen  next.  It  is  just  as  conceiv- 
able that  the  moving  ball  should  come  back  or 
should  come  to  rest,  as  that  the  ball  hitherto 
at  rest  should  begin  to  move.  A  magnet  fast- 
ened to  a  piece  of  wood  is  floating  on  water. 
Another  magnet  held  in  the  hand  is  brought 
very  near  one  of  its  poles  or  ends.  If  two 
north  poles  are  thus  brought  together  the  float- 
ing magnet  is  repelled ;  if  a  north  and  a  south 
pole  are  brought  together  the  floating  magnet 
is  attracted.  The  motion  of  the  floating  magnet 
is  in  each  case  called  the  effect ;  the  approach  of 
the  magnet  held  in  the  hand  is  called  the 
cause.  And  tliis  cause  is,  as  far  as  we  know, 
invariably  followed  by  this  effect.  But  to  say 
that  one  is  cause  and  the  other  effect  is  merely 
to  say  that  one  is  always  foUowed  by  the 
other ;  and  no  other  meaning,  according  to  Hume, 
can  be  attached  to  the  words  cause  and  effect. 

Having  established  this  interpretation  of 
these  words,  Hume  goes  on  to  ask :  What 
can  be  the  ground  in  reason  for  the  principle 
universally  adopted,  that  the  law  of  cause  and 
effect  rules  phenomena,  and  that  a  cause  which 


12 


Ori^^in  and  Nature  of  [Lect. 


has  been  followed  by  an  effect  once  will  be 
followed  by  the  same  effect  always?  And  he 
concludes  that  no  rational  ground  can  be  found 
at  all,  that  it  is  the  mere  result  of  custom 
without  anything  rational  behind  it.  We  are 
accustomed  to  see  it  so,  and  what  we  have 
been  so  perpetually  accustomed  to  see  we 
believe  that  we  shall  contimie  to  see.  But 
why  what  has  always  been  hitherto  should 
always  be  hereafter,  no  reason  wdiatever  can 
be  given.  The  logical  conclusion  obviously  is 
to  discredit  all  human  faculties  and  to  land 
us  in  universal  scepticism. 

It  was  at  this  point  that  Kant  took  up  the 
question,  avowedly  in  consequence  of  Hume's 
reasoninsr.  He  considered  that  Hume  had  been 
misled  by  turning  his  attention  to  Physics, 
and  that  his  own  good  sense  w^ould  have 
saved  him  from  his  conclusion  had  he  thought 
rather  of  Mathematics.  Kant's  solution  of  the 
problem,  based  mainly  on  the  reality  of  Mathe- 
matics, and  especially  of  Geometry,  is  the  direct 
opposite  of  Hume's. 

It  will  be  most  easy  to  give  a  clear  account 
of  Kant's   solution   by    using   a   very  familiar 


I.]  Scientific  Belief.  13 

illustration.  There  is  a  well-known  common 
toy  called  a  Kaleidoscope,  in  which  bits  of 
coloured  glass  placed  at  one  end  are  seen  through 
a  small  round  hole  at  the  other.  The  bits  of 
glass  are  not  arrariged  in  any  order  whatever, 
and  by  shaking  the  instrument  may  be  re- 
arranged again  and  again  indefinitely  and  still 
without  any  order  whatever.  But  however 
they  may  be  arranged  in  themselves  they 
always  form,  as  seen  from  the  other  end,  a 
symmetrical  pattern.  The  pattern  indeed  varies 
with  every  shake  of  the  instrument  and  con- 
sequent re- arrangement  of  the  bits  of  glass, 
but  it  is  invariably  symmetrical.  Now  the 
symmetry  in  this  case  is  not  in  the  bits  of 
glass ;  the  colours  are  there  no  doubt,  but  the 
symmetrical  arrangement  of  them  is  not.  The 
symmetry  is  entirely  due  to  the  instrument. 
And  if  a  competent  enquirer  looks  into  the 
instrument  and  examines  its  construction,  he 
will  be  able  to  lay  down  with  absolute  cer- 
tainty the  laws  of  that  symmetry  which  every 
pattern  as  seen  through  the  instrument  must 
obev. 

Just  such  an  instrument,  according  to  Kant, 


i^  07'igin  and  Nature  of  [Lect. 

is  the  human  mind.  Space  and  Time  and  the 
Perceptive  Faculties  are  the  parts  of  the  in- 
strument. Everything  that  reaches  the  senses 
must  submit  to  the  lavrs  of  Space  and  Time, 
that  is,  to  the  Laws  of  Mathematics,  because 
Space  and  Time  are  forms  of  the  mind  itself, 
and,  like  the  kaleidoscope,  arrange  all  things 
on  their  way  to  the  senses  according  to  a 
pattern  of  their  own.  This  pattern  is  as  it 
were  superadded  to  the  manifestations  that 
come  from  the  things  themselves ;  and  if  there 
be  any  manifestations  of  such  a  nature  that 
they  could  not  submit  to  this  addition,  or,  in 
other  words,  could  not  submit  to  Mathematical 
Laws,  these  manifestations  could  not  affect  our 
senses  at  all.  So  too  our  Understanding  has 
a  pattern  of  its  own  which  it  imposes  on  all 
things  that  reach  its  power  of  perception. 
What  cannot  be  accommodated  to  this  pattern 
cannot  be  understood  at  all.  Whatever  things 
may  be  in  themselves,  their  manifestations  are 
not  within  the  range  of  our  intelligence,  except 
by  passing  through  the  arranging  process  which 
our  own  mind  executes  upon  them. 

It   is   clear  that  this  wonderfully  ingenious 


I.]  Scientific  Belief,  15 

speculation  rests  its  claims  for  acceptance  purely 
on  the  assertion  that  it  and  it  alone  explains 
the  facts.  It  cannot  be  proved  from  any  prin- 
ciple of  reason.  It  assumes  that  there  is  a 
demonstrative  science  of  Mathematics  quite 
independent  of  experience,  and  that  there  are 
necessary  principles  of  Physics  equally  inde- 
pendent of  experience.  And  it  accounts  for 
the  existence  of  these. 

With  Mathematics  we  are  not  now  concerned, 
and  I  will  pass  them  by  with  only  one  remark. 
The  ground  on  which  Kant's  theory  stands  is 
not  sufficient,  for  this  simple  reason.  It  ac- 
counts for  one  fact;  it  does  not  account  for 
another  fact.  It  accounts  for  the  fact  that  we 
attach  and  cannot  help  attaching  a  conviction 
of  necessity  to  all  mathematical  reasoning.  We 
not  only  know  that  two  straight  lines  enclose 
a  space,  but  we  know  that  this  is  so  and  must 
be  so  in  all  places  and  at  aU  times,  and  we 
know  it  without  any  proof  whatever.  This 
fact  Kant  accounts  for.  Space  is  according 
to  him  a  part  of  our  kaleidoscope ;  you  can 
always  look  into  it  and  see  for  yourself  what 
are  the  laws  of  it.     But  there  is  another  fact. 


1 6  Origin  and  Natttre  of  [Lect. 

This  space  of  which  we  are  speaking  is  unques- 
tionably to  our  minds  not  a  thing  inside  of 
us  but  outside  of  us.  We  are  in  it.  We 
cannot  get  rid  of  a  sense  that  it  is  inde- 
pendent of  ourselves.  We  can  imagine  ourselves 
non-existing,  minds  and  all.  We  cannot  ima- 
gine space  non-existing.  If  it  be  a  part  of 
our  minds,  how  is  it  that  we  can  picture  to 
ourselves  the  non-existence  of  the  mind  which 
is  the  whole,  but  not  the  non-existence  of 
space  which,  according  to  the  hypothesis,  is 
the  part  %  For  this  fact,  which  we  commonly 
call  the  objectivity  of  space,  Kant's  theory 
does  not  account.  In  fact  Kant  appears  to 
have  no  escape  from  assigning  this  objectivity 
of  space  to  delusion.  But  a  theory  which 
requires  us  to  call  an  ineradicable  conviction 
of  consciousness  a  delusion  cannot  be  said  to 
explain  all  the  facts.  John  Stuart  Mill  main- 
tains that  the  other  fact,  namely,  the  conviction 
of  the  necessity  of  mathematical  truth,  is  a 
delusion.  And  his  account  also  must  be  pro- 
nounced for  that  reason  to  fail  in  accounting 
for  all  the  facts. 

But  our  present  concern  is  not  with  Mathe- 


I.]  Scientific  Belief.  17 

matics  but  with  Physics.  And  here  Kant  fails 
altogether  to  convince ;  for,  taking  Time  and 
the  Perceptive  Powers  of  the  Understanding 
as  parts  of  the  human  mind,  he  shows,  what 
indeed  is  clearer  and  clearer  every  day,  that 
the  principles  (so  called)  of  Physics  are  indis- 
pensable Postulates,  not  indeed  of  observing  with 
the  senses,  but  of  comprehending  with  the  un- 
derstanding, whatever  happens.  In  order  to 
give  anything  that  can  be  called  an  explanation 
of  any  event  we  must  show  that  it  falls  under 
the  general  rules  which  constitute  the  unifor- 
mity of  Nature.  We  have  no  other  meaning 
for  the  words  understanding  or  explaining  an 
event.  Thinking,  when  analysed,  is  found  to 
consist  in  bringing  all  that  happens  under 
universal  laws,  and  no  phenomenon  can  be 
said  to  be  explained  in  thought  except  by 
being  so  related  to  all  other  phenomena.  But 
it  does  not  by  any  means  follow  that  events 
cannot  happen  or  cannot  affect  our  senses 
without  being  susceptible  of  such  explanation. 
To  say  that  an  event  cannot  be  understood, 
and  to   say  either   that   it   cannot   happen   or 

that  it  cannot  be  observed  by  the  senses,  are 

c 


1 8  Origin  and  Nature  of  [Lect. 

two  very  different  things.  The  fact  is  that 
Mathematics  and  Physics  do  not,  as  Kant 
assumes,  present  the  same  problem  for  solution, 
and  do  not  therefore  s  admit  of  one  solution 
applicable  to  both.  It  is  not  the  case  that 
there  is  a  science  of  abstract  Phvsics  corre- 
spending  to  the  science  of  Mathematics  and 
sharing  in  the  same  character  of  necessity.  In 
Mathematics  we  have  truths  which  we  cannot 
but  accept,  and  accept  as  universal  and  neces- 
sary :  in  Physics  we  have  no  such  truths,  nor 
has  Kant  even  endeavoured  to  prove  that  we 
have.  The  very  question  therefore  that  we 
are  asked  to  solve  in  regard  to  Mathematics 
does  not  present  itself  in  Physics.  I  am  con- 
strained to  believe  that  two  and  two  are  four 
and  not  five  ;  I  am  not  constrained  to  believe 
that  if  one  event  is  followed  by  another  a  great 
many  times  it  will  be  so  followed  always.  And 
the  question  is,  why,  without  any  constraint, 
I  nevertheless  so  far  believe  it  that  I  require 
special  evidence  in  any  given  case  to  convince 
me  to  the  contrary.  And  Kant's  answer  is 
irrelevant.  He  says  that  we  cannot  think  the 
sequence  of  events  unless  they  fall  under  the 


T.]  Scientific  Belief.  19 

postulates  of  thinking,  that  is,  the  ^^ostulates 
of  science ;  but  this  is  no  answer  to  the  ques- 
tion. Why  do  we  believe  that,  unless  the 
contrary  be  proved,  everything  that  is  observed 
by  the  senses  is  capable  of  being  reduced  under 
these  postulates  of  thinking  ?  The  sequence 
of  things  cannot  otherwise  be  explained ;  but 
why  should  the  sequence  of  all  things  that 
happen  be  capable  of  being  explained'?  The 
question  therefore  still  remains  unanswered. 
What  right  have  we  to  assume  this  Uniformity 
in  Nature  %  or,  in  other  words,  what  right  have 
we  to  assume  that  all  phenomena  in  Nature, 
observed  by  our  senses,  are  capable  of  being 
brought  within  the  domain  of  Science  \  And 
to  answer  this  question  we  must  approach  it 
from  a  different  side. 

And  there  is  the  more  reason  for  this  because 
it  is  undeniable  that  both  the  definition  and 
the  universality  of  the  relation  of  cause  and 
effect,  as  they  were  accepted  by  Hume  and  his 
followers,  are  not  accepted  by  men  in  general. 
In  ordinary  language  something  more  is  meant 
by  cause  and  effect  than  invariable  sequence, 
and  the  common   assumjDtion   is   not   that   all 

C  2 


20  Origin  and  Nature  of  [Lect. 

Nature  obeys  this  rule  with  absolutely  no 
variation,  but  that  the  rule  is  sufficiently  general 
for  all  practical  purposes. 

If  then  we  begin  by  asking  what  is  the 
process  of  Science  in  dealing  with  all  questions 
of  causation,  we  find  that  this  process  when 
reduced  to  its  simplest  elements  always  consists 
in  referring  every  event  as  an  effect  to  some 
cause  which  we  know  or  believe  to  have  pro- 
duced some  other  and  similar  event.  Newton 
is  struck  by  a  falling  apple.  His  first  thought 
is,  *  how  hard  the  blow.'  His  second  is  wonder, 
*  how  far  the  earth  s  attraction,  which  has  caused 
this  hard  blow,  extends.'  His  third,  'why  not 
as  far  as  the  moon  1 '  And  he  proceeds  to 
assign  the  motion  of  the  moon  to  the  same 
cause  as  that  which  produced  the  motion  of 
tlie  apple.  Taking  this  as  a  working  hypo- 
thesis, he  examines  what  would  be  the  motions 
of  all  the  planets  if  this  were  true.  And  the 
examination  ends  with  establishing  the  high 
probability  of  the  Law  of  Gravitation. 

Now  this  being  the  invariable  process  of 
Science,  it  follows  that  our  conception  of  cause 
must   come    originally  from   that   cause  which 


I.]  Scientific  Belief,  21 

we  have  within  ourselves  and  with  which  we 
cannot  but  begin,  the  action  of  the  human  will. 
It  is  from  this  action  that  is  obtained  that 
conception  which  underlies  the  ordinary  con- 
ception of  cause,  namely,  that  of  force  or 
power. 

This  conception  of  force  or  power  is  derived 
from  the  consciousness  of  our  own  power  to 
move  our  limbs,  and  perhaps  too  of  passions, 
temptations,  sentiments  to  move  or  oppose  our 
wills.  This  power  is  most  distinctly  felt  when 
it  is  resisted.  The  effort  which  is  necessary 
when  we  choose  to  do  what  we  have  barely 
strength  to  do,  impresses  on  us  more  clearly  the 
sense  of  a  force  residing  in  ourselves  capable 
of  overcoming  resistance.  Having  the  power 
to  move  our  limbs,  and  that  too  against  some 
resistance,  we  explain,  and  in  no  other  way 
can  we  explain,  other  motions  by  the  suppo- 
sition of  a  similar  power.  In  so  doing  we 
are  following  strictly  the  scientific  instinct  and 
the  scientific  process.  We  are  putting  into  the 
same  class  the  motions  that  we  observe  in  other 
things  and  the  motions  that  we  observe  in 
ourselves ;    the  latter  are  due  to   acts   of  our 


22  Origin  and  Nature  of  [Lect. 

own  wills,  the  former  are  assigned  to  similar 
acts  of  other  wills.  Hence  in  infancy,  and  in 
the  infancy  of  mankind,  the  whole  world  is 
peopled  with  persons  because  everything  that 
we  observe  to  move  is  personified.  A  secret 
will  moves  the  wind,  the  sun,  the  moon,  the 
stars,  and  each  is  independent  of  the  others. 

Soon  a  distinction  grows  up  between  the 
things  that  seem  to  have  a  spontaneous  motion 
and  those  that  have  not,  and  spontaneous 
motion  is  taken  as  the  sign  of  life.  And  all 
inanimate  things,  of  whatever  kind,  are  held 
to  be  moved,  if  they  move  at  all,  by  a  force 
outside  themselves.  Their  own  force  is  limited 
to  that  of  resisting,  and  does  not  include  that 
of  originating  motion.  But  though  they  can- 
not originate  motion  they  are  observed  to  be 
capable  of  transmitting  it.  And  the  notion  of 
force  is  expanded  by  the  recognition  that  it 
can  be  communicated  from  one  thing  to  another 
and  yet  to  another,  and  that  we  may  have  to 
go  back  many  steps  before  we  arrive  at  the 
will  from  which  it  originated.  We  began  wdth 
the  notion  of  a  power  the  action  of  which  was 
or  appeared  to  be  self-originated :   we  come  to 


I.]  Sciefitific  Belief,  23 


the  notion  of  a  power  the  action  of  which  is 
nothing  more  than  the  continuance  of  preceding 
action.  And  the  special  characteristic  of  the 
action  of  this  force  as  thus  conceived,  which 
we  may  call  the  derivative  force,  is  seen  to 
be  its  regularity,  just  as  the  special  character- 
istic of  the  self-originating  action  was  its  spon- 
taneity. 

As  experience  increases  the  regularity  of  the 
action  of  the  derivative  force  is  more  and  more 
observable,  and  then  arises  the  notion  of  a  law 
or  rule  regulating  the  action  of  every  such 
force.  And  a  perpetually  increasing  number 
of  phenomena  are  brought  under  this  head, 
and  are  shown  to  be,  not  the  immediate  results 
of  self-originating  action,  but  the  more  or  less 
remote  results  of  derivative  action  governed 
by  laws.  And  even  a  large  number  of  those 
phenomena,  which  specially  belong  to  life  and 
living  creatures,  in  whom  alone,  if  anywhere,  the 
self-originating  action  is  to  be  found,  are  ob- 
served to  be  subject  to  law  and  therefore  to 
be  the  issue  not  of  self-originating  but  of  deri- 
vative action.  And  this  observed  regularity  it 
is  found  possible  to  trace  much  more  widely 


24  Origin  and  Nature  of  [Lect. 

than  it  is  possible  to  trace  any  clear  evidence 
of  what  we  understand  by  force.  And  so,  at 
last,  we  frequently  use  the  word  force  as  it 
were  by  anticipation,  not  to  express  the  cause 
of  the  phenomena,  which  indeed  we  do  not 
yet  know,  but  as  a  convenient  abbreviation 
for  a  large  number  of  facts  classed  under  one 
head.  And  this  it  is  which  enables  Hume  to 
maintain  that  we  mean  no  more  by  a  cause 
than  an  event  which  is  invariably  followed  by 
another  event.  We  discover  invariability  much 
faster  than  we  can  discover  causation ;  and 
having  discovered  invariability  in  any  given 
case,  we  presume  causation  even  when  we  can- 
not yet  show  it,  and  use  language  in  accord- 
ance with  that  presumption.  Thus,  for  instance, 
we  speak  of  the  force  of  gravitation,  although 
we  cannot  yet  prove  that  there  is  any  such 
force,  and  all  that  we  know  is  that  material 
particles  move  as  if  such  a  force  were  acting  on 
them. 

As  Science  advances  it  is  seen  that  the 
regularity  of  phenomena  is  far  more  important 
to  us  than  their  causes.  And  the  attention  of 
all  students  of  Nature  is  fixed  on  that  rather 


I.]  Scientific  Belief.  25 

than  on  causation.  And  this  regularity  is  seen 
to  be  more  and  more  widely  pervading  all 
phenomena  of  every  class,  until  the  mind  is 
forced  to  conceive  the  possibility  that  it  may 
be  absolutely  universal,  and  that  even  will  itself 
may  come  within  its  supreme  dominion. 

But  to  the  very  last  the  idea  of  causation 
retains  the  traces  of  its  origin.  For  in  the 
first  place  every  step  in  this  building  up  of 
science  assumes  a  permanence  underlying  all 
phenomena.  We  cannot  believe  that  the  future 
will  be  like  the  past  except  because  we  believe 
that  there  is  something  permanent  which  was 
in  the  past  and  will  be  in  the  future.  And 
this  assumption  of  something  permanent  in 
things  around  us  comes  from  the  conscious- 
ness of  something  permanent  within  us.  We 
know  our  own  permanence.  Whatever  else  we 
know  or  do  not  know  about  ourselves,  we  are 
sure  of  our  own  personal  identity  through  suc- 
cessive periods  of  life.  And  as  our  explanation 
of  things  outside  begins  by  classing  them  with 
things  inside  we  still  continue  to  ascribe  per- 
manence to  whatever  underlies  phenomena  even 
when  we  have  long  ceased  to  ascribe  individual 


26  Origin  and  N attire  of  [Lect. 


wills  to  any  except  beings  like  ourselves.  And 
without  this  assumption  of  permanence  our 
whole  science  would  come  to  the  ground. 

And  in  the  second  place  let  it  be  remembered 
that  we  began  with  the  will  causing  the  motions 
of  the  limbs.  Now  there  is,  as  far  as  we  know, 
no  other  power  in  us  to  affect  external  nature 
than  by  setting  something  in  motion.  We  can 
move  our  limbs,  and  by  so  doing  move  other 
thuigs,  and  by  so  doing  avail  ourselves  of  the 
laws  of  Nature  to  produce  remoter  effects.  But, 
except  by  originating  motion,  we  cannot  act  at 
all.  And,  accordingly,  throughout  all  science 
the  attempt  is  made  to  reduce  all  phenomena  to 
motions.  Sounds,  colours,  heat,  chemical  action, 
electricity,  we  are  perpetually  endeavouring  to 
reduce  to  vibrations  or  undulations,  that  is,  to 
motion  of  some  sort  or  other.  The  mind  seems 
to  find  a  satisfaction  when  a  change  of  whatever 
kind  is  shown  to  be,  or  possibly  to  be,  the  result 
of  movement.  And  so  too  all  laws  of  Nature 
are  then  felt  to  be  satisfactorily  explained  when 
they  can  be  traced  to  some  force  exhibited  in 
the  movement  of  material  particles.  The  law 
of  Gravitation  has  an  enormous  evidence  in  sup- 


I.]  Scientific  Belief.  27 

port  of  it  considered  simply  as  a  fact.  And  yet 
liow  many  attempts  have  been  made  to  repre- 
sent it  as  the  result  of  vortices  or  of  particles 
streaming  in  all  directions  and  pressing  any  two 
bodies  together  that  lie  in  their  path  !  The  facts 
which  establish  it  are  enough.  Why  then  these 
attempts  \  What  is  felt  to  be  yet  wanting  % 
What  is  felt  to  be  wanting  is  something  to  show 
that  it  is  the  result  of  some  sort  of  general  or 
universal  motion,  and  that  it  thus  falls  under 
the  same  head  as  other  motions,  either  those 
which  originate  in  ourselves  and  are  propagated 
from  our  bodies  to  external  objects,  or  those 
w^iich,  springing  from  an  imknown  beginning, 
are  for  ever  continuing  as  before. 

This  then  is  the  answer  to  the  question,  Why 
do  we  believe  in  the  uniformity  of  Nature  %  We 
believe  in  it  because  we  find  it  so.  Millions  on 
millions  of  observations  concur  in  exhibiting  this 
uniformity.  And  the  longer  our  observation 
of  Nature  goes  on,  the  greater  do  we  find  the 
extent  of  it.  Thinnfs  that  once  seemed  irre- 
gular  are  now  known  to  be  regular.  Things  that 
seemed  inexplicable  on  this  hypothesis  are  now 
explained.     Every  day  seems  to  add  not  merely 


28  Origin  and  Nahcre  of  [Lect. 

to  the  instances  but  to  the  wide-ranging  classes 
of  phenomena  that  come  under  the  rule.  We 
had  reason  long  ago  to  hold  that  the  quantity 
of  matter  was  invariable.  We  now  have  reason 
to  think  that  the  quantity  of  force  acting  on 
matter  is  invariable.  And  to  this  is  to  be  added 
the  evidence  of  scientific  prediction,  the  range 
of  which  is  perpetually  increasing,  and  which 
would  be  obviously  impossible  if  Nature  were 
not  uniform.  And  yet  again  to  this  is  to  be 
added  that  this  uniformity  does  not  consist  in 
a  vast  number  of  separate  and  independent 
laws,  but  that  these  laws  already  form  a  system 
with  one  another,  and  that  that  system  is  daily 
becoming  more  complete.  We  believe  in  the 
uniformity  of  Nature  because,  as  far  as  we  can 
observe  it,  that  is  the  character  of  Nature. 

And  I  use  the  word  character  on  purpose, 
because  it  indicates  better  than  any  other  word 
that  I  could  find  at  once  the  nature  and  limit- 
ation of  our  belief. 

For,  if  the  origin  of  this  belief  be  what  I 
have  described,  it  is  perfectly  clear  that,  how- 
ever vast  may  be  the  evidence  to  prove  this 
uniformity,  the  conclusion  can  never  go  beyond 


I.]  Scientific  Belief.  29 

the  limits  of  this  evidence,  and  generality  can* 
never  be  confounded  with  universality.  The 
certainty  that  Nature  is  uniform  is  not  at  all, 
and  never  can  be,  a  certainty  of  the  same  kind 
as  the  certainty  that  four  times  five  are  twenty. 
We  can  assert  that  the  general  character  of 
Nature  is  uniformity,  but  we  cannot  go  beyond 
this.  Every  separate  law  of  nature  is  estab- 
lished by  induction  from  the  facts,  and  so  too  is 
the  general  uniformity.  Every  separate  law  of 
Nature  is  a  working  hypothesis.  So  too  is  the 
uniformity  of  Nature  a  working  hypothesis,  and 
it  never  can  be  more.  It  is  true  that  there  is 
far  more  evidence  for  the  uniformity  of  Nature 
as  a  whole  than  for  any  one  law  of  Nature ; 
because  a  law  of  Nature  is  established  by  the 
uniformity  of  sequences  in  those  phenomena  to 
which  it  applies ;  whereas  every  uniformity  of 
sequence,  of  whatever  kind,  is  an  evidence  of 
the  general  imiformity.  The  evidence  for  the 
uniformity  of  nature  is  the  accumulated  evidence 
for  all  the  separate  uniformities.  But,  however 
much  greater  the  quantity  of  evidence,  the  kind 
ever  remains  the  same.  There  is  no  means  by 
which  we  can  demonstrate  this  uniformity.    We 


30  Oinghi  and  Nature  of  [Lect. 

can  only  make  it  probable.  We  can  say  that  in 
almost  every  case  all  the  evidence  is  one  way ; 
bnt  whenever  there  is  evidence  to  the  contrary 
we  cannot  refuse  to  examine  it. 

If  a  miracle  were  worked  science  could  not 
prove  that  it  was  a  miracle,  nor  of  course  prove 
that  it  was  not  a  miracle.  To  prove  it  to  be  a 
miracle  would  require  not  a  vast  range  of  know- 
ledge, but  absolutely  universal  knowledge,  which 
it  is  entirely  beyond  our  faculties  to  attain.  To 
say  that  any  event  was  a  miracle  would  be  to 
say  that  we  knew  that  there  was  no  higher  law 
that  could  explain  it,  and  this  we  could  not  say 
unless  we  knew  all  laws :  to  say  that  it  was  not 
a  miracle  would  be  ex  hypothesi  to  assert  what 
was  false.  In  fact,  to  assert  the  occurrence  of  a 
miracle  is  simply  to  go  back  to  the  beginning  of 
science,  and  to  say :  Here  is  an  event  which  we 
cannot  assign  to  that  derivative  action  to  which 
we  have  been  led  to  assign  the  great  body  of 
events  :  we  cannot  explain  it  except  by  re- 
ferring it  to  direct  and  spontaneous  action,  to 
a  will  like  our  own  will.  Science  has  shown 
that  the  vast  majority  of  events  are  due  to 
derivative  action  regulated  by  laws.     Here  is 


I.]  Scientific  Belief.  31 

an  event  which  cannot  be  so  explained,  any 
more  than  the  action  of  our  own  free  will  can 
be  so  explained.  Science  may  fairly  claim  to 
have  shown  that  miracles,  if  they  happen  at 
all,  are  exceedingly  rare.  To  demonstrate  that 
they  never  happen  at  all  is  impossible,  from  the 
very  nature  of  the  evidence  on  which  Science 
rests.  But  for  the  same  reason  Science  can 
never  in  its  character  of  Science  admit  that  a 
miracle  has  happened.  Science  can  only  admit 
that,  so  far  as  the  evidence  goes,  an  event  has 
happened  which  lies  outside  its  province. 

To  believers  the  progress  of  Science  is  a  per- 
petual instruction  in  the  character  which  God 
has  impressed  on  His  works.  That  He  has  put 
Order  in  the  very  first  place  may  be  a  surprise 
to  us;  but  it  can  only  be  a  surprise.  In  the 
great  machinery  of  the  Universe  it  constantly 
happens  to  us  to  find  that  that  which  is  made 
indispensable  is  nevertheless  not  the  highest. 
The  chosen  people  were  not  the  highest  in  all 
moral  or  even  in  all  spiritual  characteristics  ;  if 
we  refuse  the  explanation  given  by  Goethe  that 
they  were  chosen  for  their  toughness,  yet  we 
have  no  better  to  give.     The  eternal  moral  law 


32  Origin  aiid  Nature  of  [Lect. 


is  of  all  we  know  the  highest  and  holiest.  Yet 
the  religious  instinct  seems  to  have  been  more 
indispensable  for  the  development  of  humanity 
according  to  the  Divine  purpose  than  the  obser- 
vance of  that  moral  law  in  all  its  fulness.  It 
would  never  have  occurred  to  us  beforehand  to 
permit  in  Divine  legislation  any  concession  to 
the  hardness  of  men's  hearts ;  yet  we  know  that 
it  was  done.  Science  now  tells  us  that  Order 
takes  a  rank  in  God's  work  far  above  where  we 
should  have  placed  it.  It  is  not  the  highest ; 
it  is  far  from  the  highest :  but  it  appears  to  be 
in  some  strange  way  the  most  indispensable. 
God  is  teaching  us  that  Order  is  far  more  uni- 
versal, far  more  penetrating  than  we  should 
have  supposed.  But,  nevertheless,  it  is  not 
itself  God ;  nor  the  highest  revelation  of  God. 
It  is  the  stamp  which,  for  reasons  higher  than 
itself,  He  appears  to  have  put  on  His  works. 
What  is  the  limit  to  its  application  we  do  not 
know.  There  may  be  instances  where  this 
Order  is  apparently  broken,  but  really  main- 
tained, because  one  physical  law  is  absorbed  in 
a  higher;  there  may  be  instances  where  tlie 
physical  law  is  superseded  by  a  moral  law.     But 


I.]  Scit7itifu  Belief.  33 

we  shall  neither  refuse  to  recognise  that  God 
has  stamped  this  character  on  His  works,  nor 
let  it  on  the  other  hand  come  between  us  and 
Him.  For  we  know  still  that  He  is  greater 
than  all  that  He  hath  made,  and  He  speaks 
to  us  by  another  voice  besides  the  voice  of 
Science. 


:       LECTURE    II. 

THE    ORIGIN    AND    NATURE    OF 
RELIGIOUS    BELIEF. 


The  voice  within.  The  objection  of  the  alleged  relativity 
of  knowledge.  Absolute  knowledge  of  our  own  personal 
identity.  Failure  to  show  this  to  be  relative  ;  in  particular 
by  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer.  The  Moral  Law.  The  command 
to  live  according  to  that  Law;  Duty.  The  command  to 
believe  in  the  supremacy  of  that  Law ;  the  lower  Faith. 
The  Last  Judgment.  The  hope  of  Immortality.  The  per- 
sonification of  the  Moral  Law  in  Almighty  God ;  the 
higher  Faith.  The  spiritual  faculty  the  recipient  of  Reve- 
lation, if  any  be  made.  The  contrast  between  Religion  and 
Science. 


D  2 


LECTURE   11. 

THE    ORIGIN    AND    NATURE    OF 
RELIGIOUS    BELIEF. 

*  So  God  created  man  in  His  own  image,  in  the  image  of 
God  created  He  him/     Genesis  i.  27. 

THE  order  of  ]Dhenomena  is  not  the  highest 
revelation  of  God,  nor  is  the  voice  of  Science 
the  only  nor  the  most  commanding  voice  that 
speaks  to  us  about  Him.  The  behef  in  Him 
and  in  the  character  wliich  we  assign  to  Him 
does  not  spring  from  any  observation  of  phe- 
nomena, but  from  the  declaration  made  to  us 
through  the  spiritual  faculty. 

There  is  within  us  a  voice  which  tells  of  a 
supreme  Law  unchanged  throughout  all  space 
and  all  time  ;  which  speaks  with  an  authority 
entirely  its  own ;  which  finds  corroboration  in 
the   revelations    of    Science,   but   which    never 


38  Origin  and  Nature  of  [Lect. 

relies  on  those  revelations  as  its  primary  or  its 
ultimate  sanction ;  which  is  no  inference  from 
observations  by  the  senses  external  or  internal, 
but  a  direct  communication  from  the  spiritual 
kingdom,  the  kingdom,  as  philosophers  call  it,  of 
things  in  themselves  ;  which  commands  belief  as 
a  duty,  and  by  necessary  consequence  ever  leaves 
it  possible  to  disbelieve ;  and  in  listening  to 
which  we  are  rightly  said  to  walk  not  by  sight 
but  by  faith. 

Now,  before  going  on  to  say  anything  more 
about  the  message  thus  given  to  us  from  the 
spiritual  world,  it  is  necessary  to  consider  an 
objection  that  meets  us  on  the  threshold  of  all 
such  doctrines,  namely,  that  it  is  simply  im- 
possible for  us  to  know  anything  whatever  of 
things  in  themselves.  Our  knowledge,  it  is  urged, 
is  necessarily  relative  to  ourselves,  whereas  abso- 
lute as  distinct  from  relative  knowledge  is  for 
ever  beyond  our  reach.  We  can  speak  of  what 
things  appear  to  us  to  be ;  we  cannot  speak  of 
what  they  are.  We  know  or  may  know  what- 
ever comes  under  the  observation  of  our  senses 
as  phenomena  ;  we  cannot  know  what  underlies 
these  phenomena.     And  sometimes  it  has  been 


II.]  Religious  Belief, 


maintained  that  we  not  only  cannot  know  what 
it  is  that  underlies  the  phenomena,  but  cannot 
even  know  whether  anything  at  all  underlies 
the  phenomena,  and  that,  for  aught  we  can  tell, 
the  whole  world  and  all  that  exists  or  happens 
in  it  may  be  nothing  but  a  system  of  appearances 
with  no  substance  whatever.  This  doctrine  of 
tlie  relativity  of  all  knowledge  is  not  only  ap- 
plied to  things  external  but  to  our  very  selves. 
We  know  ourselves,  it  is  maintained,  only  through 
an  internal  sense  which  can  only  tell  us  how  we 
appear  to  ourselves,  but  cannot  tell  us  in  any  the 
least  degree  what  we  really  are. 

Now  this  contention  is  an  instance  of  a  ten- 
dency against  which  we  are  required  to  be 
perpetually  on  our  guard.  The  final  aim  of  all 
science  and  of  all  philosophy  is  to  find  some 
unity  or  unities  that  shall  co-ordinate  the  im- 
mense complexity  of  the  world  in  which  we  live. 
Now  there  is  one  and  only  one  legitimate  way  of 
attaining  this  aim,  and  that  is  by  patient,  perse- 
vering study  of  the  facts.  But  the  facts  turn  out 
to  be  so  numerous,  so  multifarious,  that  not  one 
life  nor  one  generation  but  many  lives  and  many 
generations  will  assuredly  not  co-ordinate  them 


40  Origin  and  Nature  of  [Lect. 

sufficiently  to  bring  this  aim  within  probable 
reach.  Hence  the  incessant  temptation,  first,  to 
supply  by  hypothesis  what  cannot  yet  be  ob- 
tained by  observation,  and,  secondly,  to  bend 
facts  to  suit  this  hypothesis  ;  and,  if  the  framing 
of  such  hypotheses  be  legitimate,  the  distortion 
of  facts  is  clearly  not  legitimate.  It  seems  too 
long  to  wait  for  future  ages  to  complete  the  task. 
We  must  in  some  sort  complete  it  now ;  and  for 
that  purpose  if  the  facts  as  we  observe  them 
will  not  suit,  we  must  substitute  other  facts  that 
will.  Accordingly  every  doctrine  must  be  made 
complete,  and  to  make  this  doctrine  of  the 
relativity  of  knowledge  complete,  we  must  get 
rid  of  all  exceptions.  But  there  is  one  exception 
that  we  cannot  get  rid  of,  and  that  is  the  convic- 
tion of  our  own  identity  through  all  changes 
through  which  we  pass.  Every  man  amongst  us 
passes  through  incessant  changes.  His  body 
changes ;  he  may  even  lose  parts  of  it  altogether ; 
he  may  lose  all  control  over  some  of  his  limbs, 
or  over  them  all.  And  there  are  internal  as  well 
as  external  changes  in  each  man.  His  affections 
change,  his  practices,  his  passions,  his  resolutions, 
his  purposes,  his  judgments;  every  thing  possibly 


II.]  Religions  Belief.  41 


by  wliich  lie  knows  his  own  cliaracter.  But 
through  all  these  changes  he  is  conscious  of  being 
still  one  and  the  same  self.  And  he  knows  this  ; 
and  knows  it,  not  as  an  inference  from  any 
observation  of  sense  external  or  internal,  but 
directly  and  intuitively.  All  other  knowledge 
may  conceivably  be  relative,  a  knowledge  of 
things  as  they  appear,  not  of  things  in  them- 
selves. But  this  is  not ;  it  is  a  knowledge  of  a 
thing  as  it  is  in  itself;  for  amidst  all  changes  in 
the  phenomena  of  each  man's  nature,  this  still 
remains  absolutely  unchanged.  We  do  speak  of 
sameness  in  application  to  phenomena  ;  we  say 
this  is  the  same  colour  as  that ;  this  is  the  same 
musical  note  as  that ;  this  is  the  same  sensation 
as  that.  But  here  we  mean  a  different  thing  by 
the  word  same.  We  mean  indistinguisbability. 
We  mean  that  we  cannot  distinguish  between 
the  two  colours,  the  two  notes,  the  two  sensa- 
tions. And  this  no  doubt  is  a  relative  knowledge, 
not  a  knowledge  of  things  in  themselves.  But 
we  do  not  mean  incapacity  of  being  distinguished 
when  we  speak  of  our  own  personal  identity. 
When  a  man  thinks  to-day  of  his  life  of  yester- 
day, and  regards    himself   as    the    same    being 


42  Origin  and  Nature  of  [Lect. 

through  all  the  time,  he  does  not  simply  mean 
that  he  cannot  distinguish  between  the  being 
that  existed  yesterday  according  to  his  memory 
and  the  being  that  exists  to-day  according  to  his 
present  consciousness  :  he  means  that  the  being 
is  one  and  the  same  absolutely  and  in  itself. 

And  this  conviction  of  personal  identity  will 
presently  be  found  to  fall  in  with  the  revelation 
of  the  Moral  Law,  which  is  my  subject  in  this 
Lecture.  For  it  is  by  virtue  of  this  personal 
identity  that  I  become  responsible  for  my  actions. 
I  am  not  merely  the  same  tliinking  subject,  I  am 
the  same  moral  agent  all  through  my  life.  If  I 
changed  as  fast  as  the  phenomena  of  my  being 
changed,  my  responsibility  for  any  evil  deed 
would  cease  the  moment  the  deed  was  done.  No 
punishment  would  be  just,  because  it  would  not 
be  just  to  punish  one  being  for  the  faults  of  a 
totally  different  being.  The  Moral  Law  in  its 
application  to  man  requires  as  a  basis  the  per- 
sonal identity  of  each  man  with  himself. 

If  corroboration  were  needed  of  the  directness 
of  the  intuition  by  which  we  get  this  idea  of 
our  own  personal  identity,  it  would  be  found  in 
the  entire  failure  of  all  attempts  to  derive  that 


II.]  Religious  Belief,  43 


idea  from  any  other  source.     Comte,  the  founder 
of  the  Positive  School,  can  do  nothing  with  this 
idea  but  suggest  that  it  is  probably  the  result  of 
some  obscure  synergy  or  co-operation  of  the  facul- 
ties.   John  Stuart  Mill  passes  it  by  altogether  as 
lying  outside  the  scope  of  his  enquiries  and  of 
his  doctrine.     Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  deals  with  it 
in    a  very  weak   chapter^    of  his    remarkable 
volume  of  First  Principles.     He  divides  all  the 
manifestations  made  to  our  consciousness,  or,  as 
we  commonly  say,  all  our  sensations,  into  two 
o-reat  classes.     He  selects  as  the  main  but  not 
universal  characteristic  of  the  one  class,  vivid- 
ness ;  of  the  other  class,  faintness ;  a  distinction 
first  insisted  on,  though  somewhat   differently 
applied,    by    Hume.      He    adds    various    other 
characteristics  of  each  class,  some  of  them  im- 
plying very  questionable  propositions.    And  we 
come  finally  to  the  following  astonishing  result. 
Sensations  are  divided  into  two  classes ;    each 
has  seven  main  characteristics  which  distinguish 
it  from  the  other.    One  of  these  classes  make  up 
the  subject,  that  which  I  mean  when  I  use  the 
words  I  myself;    the  other  the  object  or  that 
1  The  Data  of  Philosophy. 


44  Origin  and  Nature  of  [Lect. 

which  is  not  I.  But  there  is  absolutely  nothing 
to  determine  which  is  which,  which  class  is  the 
subject  and  which  is  the  object,  which  is  I  my- 
self, and  which  is  not  I  myself.  Vividness  and 
faintness  plainly  have  nothing  in  them  by  which 
we  can  assign  the  one  to  that  which  is  I,  the 
other  to  that  which  is  not  I.  If  we  were  to 
conjecture,  we  should  be  disposed  to  say  that 
surely  the  most  vivid  sensations  must  be  the 
nearest  and  therefore  must  be  part  of  that  which 
is  I ;  but  we  find  it  is  quite  the  other  way. 
The  faint  sensations  are  characteristic  of  that 
which  is  I,  and  the  vivid  of  that  which  is  not  I. 
And  the  same  remark  applies  to  each  pair  of 
characteristics  in  succession.  The  fact  is  that 
Mr.  Spencer  has  omitted  what  is  essential  to 
complete  his  argument ;  he  has  not  shown,  nor 
endeavoured  to  show,  nor  even  thought  of  show- 
ing, how  out  of  his  seven  characteristics  of  the 
subject  the  conception  of  a  subject  has  grown. 
It  is  quite  plain  that  he  not  only  makes  his 
classes  first  and  finds  his  characteristics  after- 
wards, which  we  may  admit  to  have  been 
inevitable  ;  but  he  fails  altogether  to  show  how 
that  by  which  we  know  the  classes  apart  has 


II.]  Religions  Belief.  45 


grown  out  of  the  characteristics  that  he  has 
given  us.  The  characteristics  which  he  assigns 
to  that  which  is  I,  all  added  together,  do  not  in 
the  slio-htest  deo'ree  account  for  that  sense  of 
permanent  existence  in  spite  of  changes  which 
lies  at  the  root  of  my  distinction  of  myself  from 
other  things.  The  very  word  same,  in  the  sense  in 
which  I  use  it  when  speaking  of  myself,  cannot  be 
defined  except  by  reference  to  ray  own  sameness 
with  myself.  It  is  a  simple  idea  incapable  of 
analysis,  and  is  indeed,  as  was  pointed  out  in  my 
last  Lecture,  the  root  of  the  character  of  per- 
manence which  we  assign  to  things  external.  To 
say  that  this  conception  has  been  evolved  from 
the  characteristics  that  Mr.  Spencer  has  enumer- 
ated is  like  saying  that  a  cat  has  been  evolved 
without  any  intermediate  stages  from  a  fish,  or  a 
smell  from  a  colour. 

But,  if  we  now  go  a  step  further,  and  ask  in 
what  form  this  personal  identity  presents  itself 
in  the  world  of  phenomena,  the  answer  is  clear : 
our  personality  while  bound  up  with  all  our 
other  faculties,  so  that  we  can  speak  of  our 
understanding,  our  affections,  our  powers  of  per- 
ception and  sensation,  as  parts  of  ourselves,  yet 


46  Origiii  and  Nature  of  [Lect. 

is  centred  in  one  faculty  which  we  call  the 
will.  *  If  there  be  aught  spiritual  in  man,'  says 
Coleridge,  *the  will  must  be  such.  If  there  be  a 
will,  there  must  be  a  spirituality  in  man/  The 
will  is  the  man.  It  is  the  will  that  makes  us 
responsible  beings.  It  is  for  the  action  of  our 
will,  or  the  consent  of  our  will,  that  we  come 
to  be  called  in  question.  It  is  by  the  will  that 
we  assert  ourselves  amidst  the  existences  around 
us;  and  as  the  will  is  the  man  in  relation  to 
phenomena,  so  on  the  other  side  the  will  is  the 
one  and  only  force  among  the  forces  of  this 
world  which  takes  cognizance  of  principles  and 
is  capable  of  acting  in  pursuit  of  an  aim  not  to 
be  found  among  phenomena  at  all.  The  will 
is  not  the  whole  spiritual  faculty.  Besides  the 
power  of  willing  we  have  the  power  of  recognis- 
ing spiritual  truth.  And  this  power  or  faculty 
we  commonly  call  the  conscience.  But  the  con- 
science is  not  a  force.  It  has  no  power  of  acting 
except  through  the  will.  It  receives  and  trans- 
mits the  voice  from  the  spiritual  world,  and  the 
will  is  responsible  so  far  as  the  conscience 
enlisrhtens  it.  It  is  the  will  wherebv  the  man 
takes  his  place  in  the  world  of  phenomena. 


n.]  Religious  Belief,  47 

It  is  then  to  the  man,  thus  capable  of  appre- 
ciating a  law  superior  in  its  nature  to  all  phe- 
nomena and  bearing  within  himself  the  convic- 
tion of  a  personal  identity  underlying  all  the 
changes  that  may  be  encountered  and  endured, 
that  is  revealed  from  within  the  command  to 
live  for  a  moral  purpose  and  believe  in  the 
ultimate  supremacy  of  the  moral  over  the 
physical.  The  voice  within  gives  this  com- 
mand in  two  forms  ;  it  commands  our  duty 
and  it  commands  our  faith.  The  voice  gives 
no  proof,  appeals  to  no  evidence,  but  speaks 
as  having  a  right  to  command,  and  requires 
our  obedience  by  virtue  of  its  own  inherent 
superiority. 

Its  first  command  we  call  duty.  The  voice 
within  awakes  a  peculiar  sentiment  which, 
except  towards  its  command,  is  never  felt  in 
our  souls,  the  sentiment  of  reverence.  And  it 
commands  the  pursuit  of  that,  whatever  it  may 
be,  to  which  this  sentiment  of  reverence  attaches. 
This  is  the  positive  test  by  which  we  are  to 
know  what  is  ever  to  be  our  highest  aim.  And 
along  with  this  there  is  a  negative  test  by 
which  we  are  perpetually  to  correct  the  other. 


48  Origin  and  Nahire  of  [Lect. 


namely,  the  test  of  universality.  The  moral 
law  in  its  own  nature  admits  of  no  exceptions. 
If  a  principle  of  action  be  derived  from  this 
law  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  time,  or  place, 
or  circumstances;  it  must  hold  good  in  the 
distant  future,  in  planets  or  stars  utterly 
remote,  as  fully  as  it  holds  good  now  and 
here. 

This  duty  we  can  subdivide  under  four  heads, 
accordingly  as  we  apply  it  to  our  dealings  with 
ourselves,  with  other  moral  and  spiritual  beings, 
with  other  creatures  that  can  feel  pleasure  and 
pain,  with  things  that  are  incapable  of  either. 
If  we  are  thinking  of  ourselves  only,  duty  con- 
sists in  the  pursuit  of  holiness,  that  is,  in  the 
absolute  subjection  of  what  does  not  demand 
reverence  to  that  which  does.  It  is  plain  that 
what  deserves  reverence  in  us  is  that  which 
approaches  most  nearly  to  the  moral  law  in 
character.  The  appetites,  the  affections,  the 
passions,  have  each  their  own  separate  objects. 
They  may  be  useful  in  the  highest  degree,  but 
they  cannot  in  themselves  deserve  reverence, 
for  their  objects  are  not  the  moral  law;  they 
must   therefore   be   absolutely  subordinated   to 


II.]  Religious  Belief.  49 

the  will  and  the  conscience  which  have  for 
their  objects  the  very  law  itself.  Holiness  con- 
sists in  the  subjection  of  the  whole  being,  not 
in  act  alone,  but  in  feeling  and  desire  as  well, 
to  the  authority  of  conscience. 

If  we  are  thinking  of  other  moral  agents, 
duty  prescribes  strict  and  unfailing  justice  ;  and 
justice  in  its  highest  and  purest  form  is  love, 
the  unfailinof  recoo'nition  of  the  fullest  claims 
that  can  be  made  on  us  by  all  who  share  our 
own  divine  superiority :  to  love  God  above  all 
else,  and  to  love  aU  spiritual  beings  as  we  love 
ourselves,  this  is  duty  in  relation  to  other  spiri- 
tual beings. 

If  we  are  thinking  of  creatures  which,  whether 
moral  agents  or  not,  are  capable  of  pain  and 
pleasure,  our  duty  takes  the  form  of  goodness 
or  tenderness.  We  have  no  right  to  inflict  pain 
or  even  refuse  pleasure  unless,  if  the  circum- 
stances were  reversed,  we  should  be  bound  in 
conscience  to  be  ready  in  our  turn  to  bear  the 
same  infliction  or  refusal.  The  precept,  Do  as 
you  would  be  done  by,  is  here  supreme,  and  it 
IS  to  this  class  of  duties  that  that  precept  ap- 
plies, and  the  limits  of  our  right  to  inflict  pain 

E 


50  Origin  and  Natu7'e  of  [Lect. 


on  other  creatures,  whether  rational  or  irrational, 
will  be  determined  by  this  rule. 

And,  lower  still,  our  duty  to  things  that  are 
incapable  of  all  feeling  is  summed  up  in 
that  knowledge  of  them  and  that  use  of  them 
which  makes  them  the  fittest  instruments  of  a 
moral  life. 

The  sentiment  of  reverence  is  our  guide  in 
determining  our  duty,  and  the  test  of  univer- 
sality perpetually  comes  in  to  correct  the  com- 
mands of  this  sentiment  and  to  clear  and  so  to 
refine  the  sentiment  itself. 

As  is  the  case  in  a  certain  degree  with  every 
other  kind  of  knowledge  or  belief,  so  in  a  very 
special  degree  the  Moral  Law  finds  its  place  even 
in  minds  that  have  very  little  of  thought  or  of 
cultivation.  The  most  untutored  is  not  insensi- 
ble to  the  claim  made  on  our  respect  by  acts  of 
courage,  self-sacrifice,  generosity,  truth;  or  to  the 
call  upon  us  for  reprobation  at  the  sight  of  acts  of 
falsehood,  of  meanness,  of  cruelty,  of  profligacy. 
Even  in  the  most  untutored  there  is  a  sense 
that  these  sentiments  of  respect  and  reprobation 
are  quite  different  in  kind  from  the  other  senti- 
ments which  stir  the  soul.    And  this  is  even  more 


II.]  Religions  Belief. 


clear  in  condemnation  than  in  approval.  How- 
ever perverted  the  conscience  (the  seat  of  these 
sentiments)  may  be,  yet  the  pain  of  remorse, 
which  is  self-reprobation  for  having  broken  the 
moral  law,  is  always,  as  has  been  well  said, 
*  quite  unlike  any  other  pain  we  know,'  and  is 
felt  in  some  form  and  measure  by  every  soul  that 
lives.  And  as  the  sentiment  thus  holds  a  special 
place  in  the  most  untutored,  so  too  does  the 
sense  of  universality  by  which  we  instinctively 
and  invariably  correct  or  defend  that  sentiment 
if  it  be  challenged.  The  moment  we  are  per- 
plexed in  regard,  to  what  we  ought  to  do  or 
what  judgment  we  ought  to  pass  on  something 
already  done,  we  instinctively,  almost  involun- 
tarily, endeavour  to  disentangle  the  act  from 
all  attendant  circumstances  and  to  see  whether 
our  sentiment  of  approval  or  disapproval  would 
still  hold  good  in  quite  other  surroundings. 
We  try  to  get  at  the  principle  involved  and  to 
ascertain  whether  that  principle  possesses  the 
universality  which  is  the  sure  characteristic  of 
the  Moral  Law. 

It  will  be  matter  of  consideration  in  a  future 
Lecture  how  our  knowledge  of  the  Eternal  Law 

E  2 


52  Origin  and  Nature  of  [Lect. 


of  the  holy,  the  just,  the  good,  and  the  right, 
is  thus  purified  in  the  individual  and  in  the  race. 
At  present  it  will  be  enough  to  have  indicated 
the  general  principle  of  what  may  be  called  the 
evolution  of  the  knowledge  of  morals. 

But  I  now  go  on  from  the  Moral  Law  as  a 
duty  to  the  Moral  Law  as  a  faith.  For  the  inner 
voice  is  not  content  with  commanding  a  course 
of  conduct  and  requiring  obedience  of  that  kind. 
This  is  its  first  utterance,  and  the  man  who 
hears  and  obeys  unquestionably  has  within  him 
the  true  seed  of  all  religion.  But  though  the 
first  utterance  it  is  not  the  last.  For  the  same 
voice  goes  on  to  require  us  to  believe  that  this 
Moral  Law  which  claims  obedience  from  us, 
equally  claims  obedience  from  all  else  that  exists. 
It  is  absolutely  supreme  or  it  is  nothing. 

Its  title  to  our  obedience  is  its  supremacy,  and 
it  has  no  other  title.  If  it  depended  on  pro- 
mises of  reward  or  threats  of  punishment  ad- 
dressed to  us,  it  might  be  considered  as  a  law 
for  us,  but  could  be  no  law  for  others.  It  would 
in  that  case,  indeed,  be  a  mere  physical  law. 
Things  are  so  arranged  for  you,  and  as  far  as 
you  know  for  you  only,  that  terrible  pain  will 


II.]  Religious  Belief.  53 


come  to  you  if  you  disobey,  and  wonderful  plea- 
sure if  you  obey.     Such  a  law  as  that  might 
proceed    from   a   tyrant   possessed   of   absolute 
power  over  us  and  the  things  that  conceru  us, 
and   miofht   be    either   oood  or  bad   as   should 
happen.     But  such  a  law  would  not  be  able  to 
claim  our  reverence.     Nay,  rather,  as  is  the  case 
with  all  merely  physical  laws,  it  might  be  our 
duty  to  disobey  it.     In  claimiDg  our  reverence 
as  well  as  our  obedience,  in  making  its  sanction 
consist  in  nothing  but  the  fact  of  its  own  inhe- 
rent majesty,  the  Moral  Law  calls  on  us  to  be- 
lieve in  its  supremacy.     It  claims  that  it  is  the 
last  and  highest  of  all  laws.     The  world  before 
us  is  governed  by  uniformities  as  far  as  we  can 
judge,  but  above  and  behind  all  these  unifor- 
mities is  the  supreme   uniformity,   the  eternal 
law  of  right  and  wrong,  and  all  other  laws,  of 
whatever  kind,  must  ultimately  be  harmonised 
by  it  alone.     The  Moral  Law  would  be  itself 
unjust  if  it  bade  us  disregard  all  physical  laws, 
and  yet  was  itself  subordinate  to  those  physical 
laws.     It  has  a  right  to  require  us  to  disregard 
everything  but  itself,  if  it  be  itself  supreme  ;  if 
not,  its  claim  would  be  unjust.     We  see  here  in 


54  Origin  and  N a  here  of  [Lect. 

things  around  us  no  demonstrative  proof  that  it 
is  supreme,  except  what  may  be  summed  up  in 
saying  that  there  is  a  power  that  makes  for 
righteousness.  Enhghtened  by  the  Moral  Law 
we  can  see  strongly  marked  traces  of  its  working 
in  all  things.  The  beauty,  the  order,  the  general 
tendency  of  all  creation  accords  with  the  supre- 
macy of  the  Moral  Law  over  it  all.  But  that  is 
by  no  means  all.  We  see,  and  we  know  that  we 
see,  but  an  infinitesimal  fraction  of  the  whole. 
And  the  result  of  this  partial  vision  is  that,  while 
there  is  much  in  things  around  us  which  asserts, 
there  is  also  much  which  seems  to  denv  alto- 
gether  any  supremacy  whatever  in  the  Moral 
Law.  The  universe,  as  we  see  it,  is  not  holy, 
nor  just,  nor  good,  nor  right.  The  music  of 
creation  is  full  of  discords  as  yet  altogether  un- 
resolved. And  if  we  look  to  phenomena  alone, 
there  is  no  solution  of  the  great  riddle.  But  in 
spite  of  all  imperfections  and  contradictions,  the 
voice  within,  without  vouchsafing  to  give  us  any 
solution  of  the  perplexity,  or  any  sanction  but 
its  own  authoritative  command,  imperatively 
requires  us  to  believe  that  holiness  is  supreme 
over  unholiness,  and  justice  over  injustice,  and 


.II.]  Religious  Belief,  55 

goodness  over  evil,  and  righteousness  over  un- 
righteousness. To  obey  this  command  and  to 
believe  this  truth  is  Faith. 

This  is  the  Faith  which  is  perpetually  pre- 
senting to  the  believer's  mind  the  vision  of  a 
world  in  which  all  the  inequalities  of  this  pre- 
sent world  shall  be  redressed,  in  which  truth, 
justice,  and  love  shall  visibly  reign,  in  which 
temptations  shall  cease  and  sin  shall  cease  also ; 
in  which  the  upward  strivings  of  noble  souls 
shall  find  their  end,  and  holiness  shall  supersede 
penitence,  and  hearts  shall  be  pure  of  all  defile- 
ment. This  is  the  Faith  which  holds  to  the  sure 
conviction  that  all  things  shall  one  day  come  to 
judgment ;  and  whether  by  sudden  catastrophe 
or  by  sure  development,  the  physical  system 
shall  surrender  to  the  moral.  This  is  the  Faith 
which  supplies  perpetual  strength  to  the  hope 
of  immortality;  for  though  it  cannot  be  said 
that  the  immortality  of  the  individual  soul  is  of 
necessity  involved  in  a  belief  in  the  supremacy 
of  the  Moral  Law,  yet  there  is  a  sense,  never 
without  witness  in  the  soul,  that  all  would  not 
be  according  to  justice  if  a  being  to  whom  the 
Moral  Law  has  been  revealed  from  within  is 


56  Origin  and  Natter e  of  [Lect. 

nevertheless  in  no  degree  to  share  in  the  final 
revelation  of  the  superiority  of  that  Moral  Law 
over  what  is  without.  We  cannot  say  that  it  is 
a  necessary  part  of  the  supremacy  of  the  Moral 
Law  that  every  one  of  those  who  know  it  should 
partake  of  its  immortal  nature.  We  cannot  even 
say  that  it  is  a  necessary  part  of  the  ultimate 
redressing  of  all  injustice  and  resolution  of  all 
the  discords  of  life  that  the  hope  of  it  should 
prove  true  in  the  individual  as  it  will  certainly 
prove  true  in  the  universe.  For  we  are  unable 
to  weigh  individual  merit  or  demerit,  and  cannot 
assert  for  certain  that  the  balance  of  justice  is 
not  maintained  even  in  this  present  life.  But 
nevertheless  the  hope  that  it  must  and  will  be 
so  is  inextinguishable,  and  Faith  in  an  Eternal 
Law  of  Morals  is  inextricably  bound  up  with 
hope  of  immortality  for  the  being  that  is  en- 
dowed with  a  moral  and  responsible  nature. 

Faith  in  the  absolute  supremacy  of  the  Moral 
Law  is  the  first,  but  this  again  is  not  the  last 
step  upwards  in  Faith.  We  are  called  upon, 
and  still  by  the  same  imperative  voice  within, 
to  carry  our  Faith  still  further,  and  to  believe 
something  yet  higher. 


II.]  Religious  Belief,  57 


For  the  supremacy  of  the  Moral  Law  must 
be  a  moral,  not  merely  a  physical  supremacy. 
In  claiming  supremacy  at  all  the  Moral  Law 
does  not  assert  that  somehow  by  a  happy  acci- 
dent, as  it  were,  all  things  turn  out  at  last  in 
accordance  with  what  is  in  the  highest  sense 
moral.  The  supremacy  of  the  moral  over  the 
physical  involves  in  its  very  nature  an  intention 
to  be  supreme.  It  is  not  the  supremacy  of 
justice,  if  justice  is  done  as  the  blind  result  of 
the  working  of  machinery,  even  if  that  be  the 
machinery  of  the  universe.  In  our  very  concep- 
tion of  a  moral  supremacy  is  involved  the  con- 
ception of  an  intended  supremacy.  And  the 
Moral  Law  in  its  government  of  the  world  re- 
veals itself  as  possessing  the  distinctive  mark  of 
personality,  that  is,  a  purpose  and  a  will.  And 
thus,  as  we  ponder  it,  this  Eternal  Law  is  shown 
to  be  the  very  Eternal  Himself,  the  Almighty 
God.  There  is  a  sense  in  which  we  cannot 
ascribe  personality  to  the  Unknown  Absolute 
Being ;  for  our  person  ah  ty  is  of  necessity  com- 
passed with  limitations,  and  from  these  limita- 
tions we  find  it  impossible  to  separate  our  con- 
ception of  a  person.     And  it  will  ever  remain 


58  Oidgin  and  Nahtre  of  [Lect. 


true  that  our  highest  conceptions  of  God  must 
fall  altogether  short  of  His  true  nature.  When 
we  speak  of  Him  as  infinite,  we  are  but  denying 
that  He  is  restrained  by  limits  of  time  and 
space  as  we  are.  When  we  speak  of  Him  as 
absolute,  we  are  but  denying  that  He  is  subject 
to  conditions  as  we  are.  So  when  we  speak  of 
Him  as  a  person,  we  cannot  but  acknowledge 
that  His  personality  far  transcends  our  concep- 
tions. But  it  still  remains  the  truth  that  these 
descriptions  of  Him  are  the  nearest  that  we  can 
get,  and  that  for  all  the  moral  purposes  of  life 
we  can  argue  from  these  as  if  they  were  the  full 
truth.  If  to  deny  personality  to  Him  is  to 
assimilate  Him  to  a  blind  and  dead  rule,  we 
cannot  but  repudiate  such  denial  altogether.  If 
to  deny  personality  to  Him  is  to  assert  His 
incomprehensibility,  we  are  ready  at  once  to  ac- 
knowledge our  weakness  and  incapacity.  But 
we  dare  not  let  go  the  truth  that  the  holiness, 
the  justice,  the  goodness,  the  righteousness,  which 
the  Eternal  Moral  Law  imposes  on  us  as  a 
supreme  command,  are  identical  in  essential  sub- 
stance in  our  minds  and  in  His.  Indeed,  the 
more  we  keep  before  us  the  true  character  of 


II.]  Religious  Belief,  59 

that  law,  the  more  clearly  do  we  see  that  the 
Moral  Law  is  not  His  command  but  His  nature. 
He  does  not  make  that  law.  He  is  that  law. 
Almighty  God  and  the  Moral  Law  are  different 
aspects  of  what"  is  in  itself  one  and  the  same. 
To  hold  fast  to  this  is  the  fullest  form  of  Faith. 
To  live  by  duty  is  in  itself  rudimentary  religion. 
To  believe  that  the  rule  of  duty  is  supreme  over 
all  the  universe,  is  the  first  stage  of  Faith. 
To  believe  in  Almighty  God  is  the  last  and 
highest. 

It  will  be  seen  at  once  by  those  who  have 
followed  me  that  I  am  in  this  Lecture  only 
working  out  to  its  logical  conclusion  what  was 
said  long  ago  by  Bishop  Butler  in  England  and 
by  Kant  in  Germany.  Butler  calls  the  spiritual 
faculty  whose  commands  to  us  I  have  been 
examining  by  the  name  of  conscience  :  Kant 
calls  it  the  practical  reason.  But  both  alike 
insist  on  the  ultimate  basis  of  morality  being 
found  in  the  voice  within  the  soul  and  not  in 
the  phenomena  observed  by  the  senses.  Science 
by  searching  cannot  find  out  God.  To  reduce 
all  the  phenomena  of  the  universe  to  order  will 
not,  even  if  it  could  ever  be  completely   done, 


6o  Origin  and  Nature  of  [Lect. 

tell  us  the  hio-hest  truth  that  we  can  attain  to 
concerning  spiritual  things. 

Science  may  examine  all  the  phases  through 
which  religions  have  passed  and  treating  human 
beliefs  as  it  treats  all  other  phenomena  it  can 
give  us  a  history  of  religion  or  of  religions. 
But  there  is  something  underlying  them  all 
which  it  cannot  treat,  and  which  perpetually 
evades  all  attempts  to  bring  it  under  physical 
laws.  For  just  as  all  attempts  to  explain  away 
our  conviction  of  our  own  personal  identity 
have  invariably  failed  and  will  for  ever  fail 
to  satisfy  human  consciousness,  so  too  the 
strictly  spiritual  element  in  all  religion  cannot 
be  got  out  of  phenomena  at  all.  No  analysis 
succeeds  in  obliterating  the  fundamental  dis- 
tinction between  moral  and  physical  law ;  or 
in  enabling  us  to  escape  the  ever  increasing 
sense  of  the  dignity  of  the  former,  or  in  shutting 
our  ears  to  the  still  small  voice  which  is  totally 
unlike  every  other  voice  within  or  without.  To 
bring  the  Moral  Law  under  the  dominion  of 
Science  and  to  treat  the  belief  in  it  as  nothing 
more  than  one  of  the  phenomena  of  human 
nature,  it  is  necessary  to  treat  the  sentiment  of 


II.]  Religious  Belief.  6i 

reverence  which  it  excites,  the  remorse  which 
follows  on  disobedience  to  its  commands,  the 
sense  of  its  supremacy,  as  delusions.  It  is 
always  possible  so  to  treat  these  things  ;  but 
only  at  the  cost  of  standing  lower  in  the  scale 
of  being. 

But  we  have  one  step  further  to  take.  For 
as  the  spiritual  faculty  is  the  recipient  directly 
or  indirectly  of  that  original  revelation  which 
God  has  made  of  Himself  to  His  rational  crea- 
tures, so  too  this  appears  to  be  the  only  faculty 
which  can  take  cognizance  of  any  fresh  reve- 
lation that  it  might  please  Him  to  make.  If 
He  commands  still  further  duties  than  those 
commanded  by  the  supreme  Moral  Law,  if  He 
bids  us  believe  what  our  reason  cannot  deduce 
from  the  primal  belief  in  that  Law  and  in 
Himself,  it  is  to  that  faculty  that  the  command 
is  issued.  If  over  and  above  the  original  re- 
ligion as  we  may  call  it  there  is  a  revealed 
religion,  it  is  the  spiritual  faculty  that  can  alone 
accept  it.  Such  a  revelation  may  be  confirmed 
by  signs  or  proofs  in  the  world  of  phenomena. 
He  who  is  absolute  over  all  nature  may  compel 
nature  to   bear  witness  to  His  teaching.     The 


62  Origin  and  Nature  of  [Lect. 

spiritual  may  burst  through  the  natural  on  oc- 
casion, and  that  supremacy,  which  underlies  all 
nature  and  which  is  necessarily  visible  to  in- 
telHgences  that  are  capable  of  seeing  things  as 
they  are  in  themselves,  may  force  itself  into  the 
world  of  phenomena  and  show  itself  in  that 
manner  to  us.  But  this  always  is  and  must  be 
secondary.  The  spiritual  faculty  alone  can  re- 
ceive and  judge  of  spiritual  truth,  and  if  that 
faculty  be  not  reached  a  truly  religious  belief  is 
not  yet  attained. 

External  evidences  of  revealed  religion  must 
have  a  high  place  but  cannot  have  the  highest. 
A  revealed  religion  must  depend  for  its  per- 
manent hold  on  our  obedience  and  our  duty 
on  its  fastening  upon  our  spiritual  nature,  and 
if  it  cannot  do  that  no  evidences  can  maintain  it 
in  its  place. 

This  account  of  the  fundamental  beliefs  of 
Eeligion  when  compared  with  the  fundamental 
postulates  of  Science  shows  that  the  two  begin 
with  the  same  part  of  our  nature  but  proceed  by 
opposite  methods.  Both  begin  with  the  human 
will  as  possessing  a  permanent  identity  and 
exerting  a  force  of  its  own.    But  from  this  point 


II.]  Religious  Belief.  6 


J 


they  separate.  Science  rests  on  phenomena 
observed  by  the  senses ;  Eeliglon  on  the  voice 
that  speaks  directly  from  the  other  world. 
Science  postulates  uniformity  and  is  excluded 
wherever  uniformity  can  be  denied,  but  compels 
conviction  within  the  range  of  its  own  postulate. 
Keligion  demands  the  submission  of  a  free  con- 
science, and  uses  no  compulsion  but  that  im- 
posed by  its  own  inherent  dignity.  Science 
gives  warnings,  and  if  you  are  capable  of 
understanding  scientific  argument,  you  will  be 
incapable  of  disbelieving  the  warnings.  Certain 
things  will  poison  you ;  certain  neglects  will 
ruin  your  health ;  disregard  of  scientific  con- 
struction will  bring  your  roof  down  on  your 
head ;  to  enter  a  burning  building  will  risk 
your  life ;  some  of  these  things  you  may  learn 
by  ordinary  experience,  some  of  them  by  that 
combination  of  experience  which  is  called  Science. 
But  if  you  are  capable  of  the  necessary  reasoning 
you  cannot  doubt,  however  much  you  may  w^ish 
to  do  so.  And  yet  to  defy  these  warnings  and 
take  the  inevitable  consequences  of  that  defiance 
may  be  your  highest  glory.  Eeligion  also  gives 
warnings;  it  assures  you  that  the  Eternal  Moral 


64  Origin  and  NatiLve  of  [Lect. 

Law  is  supreme  ;  that,  sooner  or  later,  those  who 
disobey  will  find  their  disobedience  is  exactly 
and  justly  punished  ;  that  no  appearance  to  the 
contrary  presented  by  experience  can  be  trusted. 
But  Eeligion  will  not  compel  you  to  believe  any 
more  than  Science  will  compel  you  to  obey. 
Disbelieve  if  you  choose  and  Eeligion  will  do 
nothing  but  perpetually  repeat  its  warnings  and 
add  that  your  disbelief  has  lowered  you  in  the 
scale  of  being.  So  too  Science  gives  promises ; 
it  promises,  to  the  race  rather  than  to  the 
individual,  life  on  easier  conditions,  and  of 
greater  length ;  fewer  pains,  fewer  diseases ; 
perpetually  increasing  comforts ;  perpetually 
increasing  power  over  nature.  And  Science  is 
sure  to  keep  the  promises.  And  yet  we  may 
refuse  to  accept  the  promises,  and  it  is  con- 
ceivable that  the  refusal  may  be  far  nobler  than 
the  acceptance.  And  Eehgion  promises  also. 
It  promises  stainless  purity  in  the  soul ;  and 
truth  and  justice  and  unfailing  love ;  and  tender- 
ness to  every  creature  that  can  feel ;  and  a 
government  of  all  that  is  under  our  dominion 
with  a  single  eye  to  the  service  of  God.  And 
we    may    refuse  to  believe    these   promises   or 


II.]  Religions  Belief.  65 

to  care  whether  they  are  kept  or  not.  But 
the  refusal  or  pursuit  of  such  aims  as  these 
determines  our  position  in  the  judgment  of 
the  Supreme  and  in  the  court  of  our  own 
conscience. 

God  has  made  man  in  His  own  image  :  that 
is,  He  has  given  man  power  to  understand  His 
works  and  to  acknowledge  Himself.  And  it  is 
in  acknowledging  God  that  man  finds  himself 
divine.  He  is  a  partaker  of  the  divine  nature 
in  proportion  as  he  recognises  the  Supreme  Law 
and  makes  it  the  law  of  his  own  will.  And 
therefore  has  his  will  been  made  free  as  well 
as  his  mind  rational :  he  has  the  power  to  choose 
as  well  as  the  power  to  know.  And  our  choice 
lays  hold  on  God  Himself  and  makes  us  one 
with  Him. 


LECTURE    III. 

APPARENT  CONFLICT  BETWEEN 
SCIENCE  AND  EELIGION  ON  FREE-WILL. 


Contradiction  of  Free- Will  to  doctrine  of  Uniformity. 
Butler's  examination  of  the  question.  Hume's  solution. 
Kant's  solution.  Determinism.  The  real  result  of  examina- 
tion of  the  facts.  Interference  of  the  will  always  possible, 
but  comparatively  rare.  The  need  of  a  fixed  nature  for 
our  self-discipline,  and  so  for  our  spiritual  life. 


LECTURE   III. 

APPARENT  CONFLICT  BETWEEN 
SCIENCE  AND  RELIGION  ON  FREE-WILL. 

*  So  God  created  man  in  His  own  image,  in  the  image  of 
God  created  He  him.'     Genesis  i.  27. 

RELIGION  and  Science  botli  begin  with 
the  human  will.  The  will  is  to  Science 
the  first  example  of  power,  the  origin  of  the 
conception  of  cause  ;  the  bodily  efibrt  made  by 
the  will  lies  at  the  root  of  the  conception  of 
force.  It  is  by  comparing  other  forces  with 
that  force  that  Science  begins  its  march.  And 
the  will  is  to  religion  the  recipient  of  the 
Divine  command.  To  the  will  the  inner  voice 
addresses  itself,  bidding  it  act  and  believe.  It 
is  because  we  have  a  will  that  we  are  respon- 
sible. In  a  world  in  which  there  were  no 
creatures  endowed  with  a  will,  there  could  be 
no   right-doing   or    wrong-doing ;    no    approval 


70  Apparent  Conflict  between  [Lect. 


by  conscience  and  no  disapproval  ;   no  duty  and 
no  faith. 

Here  is  the  first  possibiHty  of  collision  be- 
tween Science  and  Eeligion.     Science  postulates 
uniformity  ;  Religion  postulates  liberty.    Science 
cannot  ever  hope  to  reduce  all  phenomena  to 
unity  if  a  whole  class  of  phenomena,  all  those 
that  belong  to  the  action  of  human  will,  are  to 
be   excluded  from  the   postulate   of  invariable 
sequence.      The   action  of  the  will   is  in   this 
case   for  ever  left  outside.     The  evidence  for 
the  absolute  uniformity  of  nature  seems  to  be 
shaken,  when  it  is  found  that  there  is  so  im- 
portant a  part  of  phenomena  to  which  this  law 
of  uniformity  cannot  be  applied.     If  a  human 
will  can  thus  interfere  with  the  law   of  uni- 
formity, there  enters  the  possibility  that  behind 
some  phenomena  may  lurk  the  interference  of 
some  other  will.     Eeligion,  on  the  other  hand, 
tells  every  man  that  he  is  responsible,  and  how 
can  he  be  responsible  if  he  is  not  free  \     If  his 
action   be   determined   by  something   which  is 
not  himself,  how  can  the  moral  burden  of  it  be 
put  on  him  %     To   tell    a   man   that  he  is  to 
answer  for  it  if  he  does  something  which  he 


III.]     Science  and  Religion  on  Free-Will.       71 

is  tempted  to  do,  is  unmeaning,  if  he  has  no 
power  to  prevent  himself  from  doing  it. 

But  this  is  not  all.  For  besides  the  sense 
of  responsibility  we  have  a  direct  consciousness 
of  being  free,  a  consciousness  which  no  reason- 
ing appears  to  extinguish.  We  sharply  dis- 
tinguish between  that  which  goes  on  within  us 
in  regard  to  which  we  are  free  and  that  in 
regard  to  which  we  are  not  free.  We  cannot 
help  being  angry,  but  we  can  control  our  anger. 
We  cannot  help  our  wishes,  but  we  can  restrain 
our  indulgence  or  our  pursuit  of  them.  We 
cannot  directly  determine  our  affections,  but  we 
can  cherish  or  discourage  them.  There  are 
extreme  cases  in  w^hich  our  wills  seem  power- 
less, but  even  here  we  are  conscious  of  our 
power  to  struggle  for  self-assertion  and  self- 
control.  There  is  very  much  in  us  which  is 
not  free ;  nay,  there  is  much  in  us  which  impels 
us  to  action  which  is  not  free.  But  we  never 
confound  this  with  our  w^ills,  and  when  our 
wills  are  overpowered  by  passion  or  appetite, 
we  call  the  act  no  longer  a  perfectly  free  act, 
and  do  not  consider  the  responsibility  for  it  to 
be  quite  the  same. 


72  Apparent  Confiict  between  [Lect 

This  question  of  the  freedom  of  the  will  was 
considered  by  Bishop  Butler  in  the  Analogy. 
He  contented  himself  with  proving  that,  make 
what  theory  we  would  concerning  the  necessity 
of  human  action,  all  men  in  practice  acted  on 
the  theory  of  human  freedom.  We  promise ; 
we  accept  promises ;  we  punish ;  we  reward  ; 
we  estimate  character ;  we  admire  ;  we  shun  ; 
we  deal  with  ourselves ;  we  deal  with  others ; 
as  if  we  and  all  others  were  free.  And  this  was 
enough  for  his  purpose.  For  he  had  to  reconcile 
a  Divine  system  of  rewards  and  punishments 
with  our  sense  of  justice.  And  if  he  could 
show,  as  he  did,  that  rewards  and  punishments 
were  plainly  not  inconsistent  with  that  sense 
of  justice  in  our  dealings  with  one  another,  it 
was  impossible  to  call  them  inconsistent  with 
that  sense  of  justice  in  God's  dealings  with  us. 

But  the  purpose  of  these  Lectures  requires 
something  more,  and  that  for  two  reasons.  For, 
in  the  first  place,  the  doctrine  of  necessity  was 
most  often  in  Bishop  Butler's  days  derived  from 
a  conception  of  a  Divine  foreknowledge  arrang- 
ing everything  by  supreme  Will,  not  from  the 
conception  of  a  blind  mechanical  rule  holding 


III.]     Science  and  Religion  on  Free-Will.       "jt^ 

all  in  its  unrelaxing  grasp.  And  though  to  the 
cold  reason  it  may  make  no  difference  how  the 
will  is  bound,  yet  to  the  moral  sentiment  the 
two  kinds  of  compulsion  differ  as  life  and  death. 
To  have  no  liberty  because  of  being  absolutely 
in  the  hands  of  Almighty  God  is  quite  another 
thing  from  having  no  liberty,  as  being  under 
the  dominion  of  a  dead  iron  rule.  It  seems 
possible  to  accept  the  one  and  call  it  an  un- 
fathomable mystery;  but  to  accept  the  other 
is  to  call  life  a  delusion  and  the  moral  law  a 
dream.  And  in  the  second  place,  the  doctrine 
of  necessity  advanced  as  a  theory  and  based  on 
arguments  not  resting  on  facts,  is  a  very  dif- 
ferent antagonist  from  the  same  doctrine  ad- 
vanced as  a  conclusion  of  science,  and  as 
deducible  from  a  mass  of  co-ordinated  observa- 
tions. We  may  dismiss  the  mere  theory  after 
showing  that  it  has  not  substance  enough  to 
hold  its  ground  in  ordinary  life.  We  cannot  so 
treat  what  claims  to  be  a  scientific  inference. 

The  modern  examination  of  the  question 
begins  with  Hume,  who  maintains  that  the 
doctrine  of  liberty  and  that  of  necessity  are 
both  true  and  of  course  compatible  with  each 


74  Apparent  Conflict  between  [Lect. 

other.     But  his  arguments  touch  only  the  broad 
question  whether   they   are   true   for   practical 
purposes,   not   whether   either   is   true   in    the 
strict  sense  and  without    exception  or  modifi- 
cation.    To  Kant's  system,  on  the  contrary,  it 
was  essential  that  both  doctrines  should  be  true 
in  the  strictest  sense.     Holding  that  invariable 
sequence  was  a  law  of  Nature  known  indepen- 
dently of  experience  and  applicable  to  all  phe- 
nomena in  the   minutest  detail,  he   could  not 
allow  that  any  act  of  the  human  will  lay  out- 
side the  range  of  this  law.     Such  an  act  being 
a  phenomenon  must,  in  his  view,  be  subject  to 
the  law  which  the  constitution  of  our  minds 
imposed  on  all  phenomena  apparent  to  us.    And 
yet,  on  the  other  hand,  holding  that  the  eternal 
Moral  Law  made  us  responsible  for  all  our  acts, 
he  could  not  but  maintain  that   in  the  doing 
of  those  acts  we  must  be  free.     His  mode  of 
reconciling  the  two  opposites  amounted  to  this, 
that  our  action  throughout  life  considered  as 
a  whole   is   free,  but   that   each   separate   act 
considered  by  itself  is  bound  to  the  preceding 
acts  by  the  law   of  invariable   sequence.      We 
may  illustrate  this  by  the  familiar  instance  of 


III.]     Science  and  Religion  on  Free-Will.       75 

a  prism  acting  on  a  ray  of  light.     The  ray  has 
or  may  have  a  colour  of  its  own  before  it  passes 
through  the  prism.     The  prism  spreads  it  out 
and  shows  a  series   of  colours.     The   order  in 
which  this  series  is  arranged  is  determined  by 
the  character  of  the  prism  acting  on  the  nature 
of  the  ray.    The  colours  when  combined  give  the 
colour  of  the  ray;  when  separated  by  the  prism 
each  has  its  own  distinct  character,  and  the  order 
of  the  colours  is  determined,  and  invariably  deter- 
mined, by  the  prism.    So  too  in  Kant's  view  the 
character  of  a  man  in  itself  may  be  free,  but 
when  it  passes  through  the  prism  of  time  into 
the   world   of  phenomena   and   is  spread  over 
many   years   it    shows   a    number    of   separate 
actions,  no  one  of  which  taken  by  itself  exhibits 
the  man,  though  all  put  together  are  the  true 
representation   of    him    to    human    perception. 
The  man  is  free.     His  life  represents  his  free 
choice.     But  his   separate  acts   are   what   that 
free   choice    becomes    when    translated   into   a 
series  of  phenomena,   and   are   bound   each  to 
the  preceding  by  the  law  of  invariable  sequence. 
It  is  plain  at   once  that  this  does  not  satisfy 
our   consciousness.     We    are    not   conscious   of 


76  Apparent  Conflict  between  [Lect. 

freedom  as  regards  our  life  as  a  whole  ;  we  are 
conscious  of  freedom  as  regards  our  separate 
actions.  Our  life  as  a  whole  embraces  our  past 
which  is  absolutely  unchangeable,  and  our 
future  which  is  not  yet  within  our  reach  ;  we 
are  conscious  of  no  present  power  over  either. 
Our  separate  acts  are  perceptibly  subject  to  our 
own  control ;  nay,  it  is  by  the  use  of  our  free- 
will in  our  separate  acts  that  we  are  able  to 
change  the  character  of  our  life  or  to  preserve 
it  from  change  ;  and  with  this  corresponds  our 
responsibility.  We  hold  ourselves  responsible 
for  each  act  as  it  is  done ;  we  hold  ourselves 
responsible  for  the  character  of  our  lives  only  so 
far  as  we  might  have  changed  it  by  our  acts. 
The  solution  leaves  the  difiSculty  where  it  was. 

It  is  now  customary  with  the  advocates  of 
the  doctrine  of  necessity  to  express  it  by  a  dif- 
ferent word,  and  call  it  the  doctrine  of  deter- 
minism. The  purpose  of  changing  the  word 
is  to  get  rid  of  all  associations  with  the  idea 
of  compulsion  ;  just  so  in  Science  it  is  thought 
better  to  get  rid  of  the  words  cause  and  effect, 
and  substitute  invariable  sequence,  in  order  to 
get  rid  of  the  notion  of  some  compulsion  recog- 


III.]     Science  and  Religion  on  Free- Will.       TJ 

nisable  by  us  in  the  cause  to  produce  tlie  effect. 
Determinism  does  not  say  to  a  man  *  you  will 
be  forced  to  act  in  a  particular  way;'  but  '  you 
will  assuredly  do  so.'  There  will  be  no  com- 
pulsion ;  but  the  action  is  absolutely  certain. 
Just  as  on  a  given  day  the  moon  will  eclipse 
the  sun,  so  in  given  circumstances  you  will 
do  the  precise  thing  which  it  is  your  character 
in  such  circumstances  to  do.  And  your  sense 
of  freedom  is  simply  the  sense  that  the  action 
proceeds  from  yourself  and  not  from  any  force 
put  upon  you  from  without. 

But  this  too  does  not  solve  the  problem.  It 
is  true  that  in  regard  to  a  very  large  proportion 
of  our  actions  the  sense  of  freedom  seems  to  be 
no  more  than  negative.  We  do  what  it  is  our 
custom,  our  inclination,  our  character  to  do. 
We  are  not  conscious  of  any  force  being  put 
upon  us  ;  but  neither  are  we  conscious  of  using 
any  force  ourselves.  We  float  as  it  w^ere  down 
the  stream,  or  hurry  along  with  a  determined 
aim,  but  having  no  desire  nor  purpose  to  the 
contrary,  the  question  of  freedom  or  necessity 
never  seems  to  arise.  It  is  even,  possible  and 
common  for  us  not  to  know  ourselves  as  w^ell 


78  Apparent  Conflict  between  [Lect. 

as  others  know  us,  and  to  do  many  things 
which  an  observer  would  predict  as  sure  to  be 
our  actions,  but  which  we  ourselves  fancy  to 
be  by  no  means  certain.  Even  in  these  cases 
we  sometimes  awake  to  the  fact  that  w^iat  we 
are  thus  allowing  in  our  lives  is  not  consistent 
with  the  law  of  duty,  and,  do  what  we  may, 
we  cannot  then  escape  the  conviction  that  we 
are  to  blame,  and  that  we  had  power  to  act 
otherwise  if  only  we  had  chosen  to  exert  the 
power.  But  it  is  when  a  conflict  arises  be- 
tween duty  and  inclination  that  our  inner  cer- 
tainty of  our  own  freedom  of  w^ll  becomes  clear 
and  unconquerable.  In  the  great  conflicts  of 
the  soul  between  the  call  of  duty  and  the 
power  of  temptation  there  are  two  forces  at 
work  upon  us.  We  are  never  for  a  moment 
in  doubt  which  is  ourselves  and  which  is  not 
ourselves ;  which  is  the  free  agent  and  which 
is  the  blind  force  ;  which  is  responsible  for  the 
issue,  and  which  is  incapable  of  responsibility. 
There  is  in  this  case  a  real  sense  of  compulsion 
from  without,  and  a  real  sense  of  resistance  to 
that  compulsion  from  within.  It  is  impossible 
in  this  case  to  account  for  the  sense  of  being  a 


III.]     Science  and  Religion  07i  Free -Will.       79 

free  agent,  by  saying  that  this  merely  means 
that  we  are  conscious  of  no  external  force.  We 
are  conscious  of  an  external  force  and  we  are 
conscious  that  this  will  of  ours  which  struggles 
against  it  is  not  an  external  force,  but  our  very 
selves,  and  this  distinction  between  the  will 
and  the  forces  against  which  the  will  is  striv- 
ing is  ineffaceable  from  our  minds.  That  the 
will  is  often  wxak  and  on  that  account  over- 
powered, and  that  after  a  hard  struggle  our 
actions  are  often  determined,  not  by  our  wills 
but  by  our  passions  or  our  appetites,  is  unques- 
tionable. Often  has  the  believer  to  pray  to  God 
for  strength  to  hold  fast  to  right  purpose,  and 
often  will  he  feel  that  without  that  strength 
he  must  inevitably  fall.  But  he  knows  that 
whatever  source  may  supply  the  strength,  it  is 
he  that  will  have  to  use  it,  and  he  that  will  be 
responsible  for  using  it  or  neglecting  to  do  so. 

The  advocates  of  determinism  urge  that  every 
action  must  have  a  motive,  and  that  the  man 
always  acts  on  that  motive  which  is  the  stronger. 
The  first  proposition  may  be  granted  at  once. 
The  freedom  of  the  will  is  certainly  not  shown 
in  acting  without  any  motive  at  all.     If  there 


8o  Appa7^ent  Conflict  between  [Lect. 

be  any  human  action  which  appears  to  be  with- 
out any  motive,  it  is  not  in  such  action  that  we 
find  human  freedom.  Such  action,  if  possible  at 
all,  must  inevitably  be  mechanical.  A  man  who 
is  acting  from  mere  caprice  is  even  more  com- 
pletely at  the  mercy  of  passing  inclination  than 
one  who  is  acting  from  passion  or  from  over- 
powering temptation.  The  freedom  of  the  will 
is  not  shown  in  acting  without  motive,  but  in 
choosing  between  motives.  But  when  it  is 
further  said  that  a  man  alwavs  acts  from  the 
stronger  motive,  the  question  immediately  fol- 
lows, what  determines  which  is  the  stronger 
motive  %  It  cannot  be  anything  in  the  motives 
themselves,  or  all  men  would  act  alike  in  the 
same  circumstances  ;  and  it  is  clear  that  they  do 
not.  It  must  be  therefore  something  in  the 
man.  And  if  it  be  something  in  the  man,  it 
must  be  either  his  will  acting  at  the  moment, 
which  in  that  case  is  free,  or  his  character.  But 
if  it  be  his  character,  then  follows  the  further 
question,  what  determines  his  character  1  If  we 
are  to  maintain  the  uniformity  of  nature,  we 
must  answer  by  assigning  the  determination  to 
the   sum   total   of  surrounding  and   preceding 


III.]     Science  and  Religion  on  Free- Will.       81 

circumstances.  Nothing  will  satisfy  that  law  of 
uniformity  but  this  ;  that,  given  such  and  such 
parents,  such  and  such  circumstances  of  birth 
and  life,  there  must  be  such  a  character  and  no 
other.  At  what  point  is  there  room  in  this  case 
for  any  responsibility  ?  I  did  not  on  this  sup- 
position make  my  character;  it  was  made  for 
me ;  any  one  else  born  in  my  stead,  and  living 
in  my  stead,  would  of  necessity  have  acted 
exactly  as  I  have  done ;  would  have  felt  the 
same,  and  aimed  at  the  same,  and  won  the  same 
moral  victories,  and  suffered  the  same  moral 
defeats.  How  can  I  be  held  responsible  for  what 
is  the  pure  result  of  the  circumstances  in  which 
I  was  born  1  But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  it  be 
said  that  our  character  is  not  the  mere  fruit  of 
our  antecedents  and  surroundings,  the  law  of 
uniformity  is  clearly  broken.  A  new  element  has 
come  into  the  world,  namely,  my  character, 
which  has  not  come  out  of  the  antecedents  and 
surroundings  according  to  any  fixed  law.  The 
antecedents  and  surroundings  might  have  been 
quite  the  same  for  any  one  else,  and  yet  I  should 
have  my  character  and  he  his,  and  our  lives 
would  have  altogether  differed. 

G 


82  Apparent  Conflict  between  [Lect. 

It  is  clear  that  determinism  does  not  get  us 
out  of  the  difficulty.  Here,  too,  as  in  regard  to 
the  necessary  truths  of  mathematics,  and  in  re- 
gard to  the  relativity  of  all  our  knowledge,  the 
theory  has  purchased  completeness  by  the  cheap 
expedient  of  calling  one  of  the  facts  to  be  ac- 
counted for  a  delusion.  Such  a  solution  cannot 
be  accepted.  In  spite  of  all  attempts  to  explain 
it  away,  the  fact  that  we  think  ourselves  free 
and  hold  ourselves  responsible  remains,  and 
remains  unaffected. 

But  let  us  examine  how  far  the  difference  be- 
tween the  scientific  view  and  the  religious  view 
of  human  action  extends. 

Observation  certainly  shows  that  a  very  large 
proportion  of  human  action,  much  even  of  that 
which  appears  at  first  sight  to  be  more  especially 
independent  of  all  law,  is  really  as  much  regu- 
lated by  laws  of  nature  as  the  movements  of  the 
planets.  I  have  already  pointed  out  how  often 
an  observer  can  predict  a  man's  actions  better 
than  the  man  himself,  and  how  often  the  will  is 
certainly  passive  and  consents  instead  of  acting. 
In  these  cases  there  is  no  reason  whatever  to 
deny  that  nature  and  not  the  will  is  producing 


III.]     Science  and  Religion  on  Free- Will.       ^t^ 

the  conduct.  And  not  only  so,  but  that  which 
seems  most  irregular,  the  kind  of  action  that  we 
call  caprice,  there  is  very  often  just  as  little 
reason  to  call  free,  as  to  assign  free-will  as  the 
cause  of  the  uncertainties  of  the  weather.  But 
it  is  not  in  observing  individuals  so  much  as  in 
observing  masses  of  men  that  we  get  convincing 
proof  that  men  possess  a  common  nature,  and 
that  their  conduct  is  largely  regulated  by  the 
laws  of  that  nature.  That  amongst  a  given 
large  number  of  men  Hving  on  the  whole  in  the 
same  conditions  from  year  to  year,  there  should 
be  every  year  a  given  number  of  suicides,  of 
murderers,  of  thieves  and  criminals  of  various 
kinds,  cannot  be  accounted  for  in  any  other  way 
than  by  the  hypothesis  that  like  circumstances 
will  produce  like  conduct.  So,  too,  in  this  way 
only  can  we  account  for  such  a  fact  as  the 
steadiness  in  the  proportion  of  men  who  enter 
any  given  profession,  of  men  who  quit  their 
country  for  another,  of  men  who  remain  un- 
married all  their  lives,  of  men  who  enter  a 
university,  of  men  who  make  any  particular 
choice  (such  as  these)  which  can  be  tested  by 
figures.     Now,  this  argument  is  unanswerable 

G  2 


84  Appa7^ent  Conflict  between  [Lect. 


as  far  as  it  goes;  but  it  succeeds,  like  all  the 
other  arguments  for  the  uniformity  of  nature,  in 
establishing  the  generality,  and  not  at  all  the 
universality  of  that  uniformity.  Indeed,  it  falls 
far  short  of  proving  as  much  uniformity  in 
human  action  as  is  proved  in  the  action  of  in- 
animate things.  The  induction  which  proves 
the  uniformity  of  the  laws  of  mechanics,  of 
chemistry,  of  physics,  is  so  far  greater  than  the 
induction  which  proves  the  uniformity  of  human 
conduct,  that  it  is  hardly  possible  to  put  the 
two  side  by  side.  When  we  turn  from  abstract 
arguments  to  facts,  the  doctrine  of  necessity  is 
unquestionably  unproven. 

And  this  agrees  with  the  result  of  a  careful 
examination  of  the  facts  of  human  consciousness 
from  the  opposite  point  of  view.  We  cannot  but 
acknowledge  that  when  we  look  very  closely  we 
find  a  very  large  proportion  of  our  own  actions 
to  be  by  no  means  the  result  of  an  interference 
by  the  will.  A  large  proportion  is  due  to 
custom;  a  large  proportion  to  inclination,  of 
which  the  will  takes  no  special  notice,  and  is  not 
called  on  by  the  conscience  to  notice  ;  a  large 
proportion  to  inclinations  which  we  know  that 


II.]     Science  and  Religion  on  Free- Will.       85 


we  ought  to  resist,  but  we  do  not  resist ;  a  much 
smaller  proportion,  but  still  some,  to  passions 
and  appetites  against  which  we  have  striven  in 
vain ;  only  a  very  small  proportion  to  deliberate 
clioice.  There  is,  in  fact,  no  irresistible  reason 
for  claiming  freedom  for  human  action  except 
when  that  action  turns  on  the  question  of  right 
or  wrong.  There  is  no  reason  to  call  action  free 
that  flows  from  inclination  or  custom,  or  passion, 
or  a  desire  to  avoid  pain,  or  a  desire  to  obtain 
pleasure.  The  will  claims  to  be  free  in  all  these 
cases,  but  it  is  free  in  the  sense  that  it  might  be 
exerted  ;  and  so,  since  it  is  not  exerted,  the 
action  is  not  free.  But  when,  at  the  call  of  duty, 
in  whatever  form,  the  will  directly  interferes, 
then  and  then  only  are  we  conscious  not  only 
that  the  will  is  free,  but  that  it  has  asserted  its 
freedom,  and  that  the  action  has  been  free  also. 

The  relation  of  the  will  to  the  conduct  falls 
under  four  distinct  heads  :  for  sometimes  the 
will  simply  concurs  with  the  inchnation ;  some- 
times it  neither  concurs  nor  opposes  ;  sometimes 
it  opposes  but  is  overpowered;  sometimes  it 
opposes  and  prevails.  In  the  first  case,  inclina- 
tion of  some  kind  or  other  prompts  the  man  to 


S6  Apparent  Conflict  between  [Lect. 

action.  The  inclination,  whether  set  up  by  an 
external  object  of  desire  or  by  an  internal  im- 
pulse of  restlessness  or  blind  craving  or  the  like, 
comes  clearly  from  the  nature,  and  is  not  free 
choice.  There  is  no  reason  to  believe  that  it  is 
not  in  most  cases,  possibly  in  all  cases,  under 
the  dominion  of  fixed  law.  It  may  be  as  com- 
pletely the  product  of  what  has  preceded  it  as 
the  eclipse  of  the  sun.  And  if  the  will  concurs 
in  the  inclination,  it  is  needless  to  discuss  the 
question  whether  the  will  acts  or  not.  The  con- 
duct is  the  same  whether  the  will  adds  force  to 
the  inclination  or  is  simply  passive.  The  freedom 
of  the  will  may  in  this  case  be  considered  as 
neojative.  So,  too,  mav  the  freedom  of  the  will 
be  considered  negative  in  the  second  case,  which 
is  that  of  the  will  neither  concurring  with  incli- 
nation nor  opposing  it.  In  this  case  there  may 
be  a  distinct  consciousness  of  freedom  in  the  form 
of  a  sense  of  responsibility  for  what  inclination 
is  permitted  to  do.  A  man  in  this  case  knows 
that  he  is  free,  perhaps  knows  that  he  ought  to 
interfere  and  control  the  conduct.  But  as  he 
does  not  interfere,  the  freedom  of  the  wiU  is  not 
asserted  in  act.     And  it  is  possible  that,  as  far 


III.]     Science  and  Religion  on  Free- Will.       Sj 

as  all  external  phenomena  are  concerned,  there 
may  be  no  breach  in  uniformity  of  sequence. 
This,  however,  can  hardly  be  in  the  third  case, 
which  is  when  the  will  and  the  inclination  are 
opposed,  and  the  will  is  overpowered.  Although 
the  inclination  prevails,  yet  the  struggle  itself  is 
an  event  of  the  most  important  kind,  and  is 
sure  to  leave  traces  on  the  character,  and  to  be 
followed  by  consequences.  In  this  case  we  are 
distinctly  conscious  of  a  power  to  add  force  to 
that  one  of  the  contending  opposites  which  is 
most  identified  with  our  very  selves,  and  we 
know  whether  we  have  added  that  force  or  not. 
And  not  only  may  we  add  this  force  directly 
from  within  ;  we  may  and  we  often  do  go  out- 
side of  ourselves  to  seek  for  aids  to  add  still 
more  force  indirectly,  and  we  do  for  this  purpose 
what  we  should  not  do  otherwise.  We  dwell  in 
thought  on  the  higher  aims  which  are  the  proper 
object  of  will ;  we  read  what  sets  forth  those 
higher  aims  in  their  full  beauty;  we  seek  the 
words,  the  company,  the  sympathy  of  men  who 
will,  we  are  sure,  encourage  us  in  this  the 
higher  path.  And,  on  the  other  hand,  we  turn 
away  from  the  temptation  which  gives  strength 


88  Apparent  Conflict  between  [Lect. 

to  the  evil  inclination,  and  if  we  cannot  escape 
from  its  presence  we  endeavour  to  drive  the 
thought  of  it  from  our  minds.  All  this  action 
is  not  for  the  sake  of  anything  thus  done,  but 
for  the  sake  of  its  indirect  effect  on  the  struggle 
in  which  we  are  engaged.  Whenever  there  is 
a  struggle,  we  are  not  only  conscious  that  the 
will  is  free,  but  that  it  is  asserting  its  freedom. 
In  these  struggles  there  is  not  a  mere  contest 
between  two  inclinations.  We  are  distinctly 
conscious  that  one  of  the  combatants  is  our  very 
selves  in  a  sense  in  which  the  other  is  not.  But, 
nevertheless,  when  all  has  been  said,  it  still  re- 
mains in  this  case  that  the  will  is  beaten  and 
inclination  prevails,  and  the  conduct  in  the  main 
is  determined  by  the  inclination,  which  is  under 
the  dominion  of  the  law  of  uniformity,  and  not 
by  the  will,  which  claims  to  be  free.  The  fourth 
case  in  which  the  will  prevails  may,  of  course, 
make  a  momentous  breach  in  the  uniformity  of 
sequence  of  the  conduct.  But  in  far  the  largest 
number  of  cases  the  struggle  is  very  slight,  and 
the  difference  between  the  will  and  the  inclination 
is  not,  taken  alone,  of  grave  importance  in  the 
life.    And  in  those  instances  in  which  the  struggle 


III.]     Science  and  Religion  on  Free- Will.       89 

is  severe  and  the  resulting  change  is  great, 
it  is  very  often  the  case  that  the  way  has  been 
prepared,  as  it  were  in  secret,  by  the  quiet  ac- 
cumulation of  hidden  forces  of  the  strictly 
natural  order  ready  to  burst  forth  when  the  fit 
opportunity  came.  In  the  great  conversions 
wdiich  liave  sometimes  seemed  by  their  sudden- 
ness and  completeness  to  defy  all  possibility  of 
reduction  to  natural  law,  there  are  often  never- 
theless tokens  of  deep  dissatisfaction  with  the 
previous  life  having  swelled  up  slowly  within 
the  soul  for  some  time,  even  for  some  long  time 
beforehand.  The  inclination  to  go  on  in  evil 
courses  has  been  broken  down  at  last,  not 
merely  by  the  action  of  the  will,  but  by  the 
Avorking  of  the  machinery  of  the  soul. 

To  this  it  must  be  added  that  the  action  of 
the  will  is  such  that  it  very  often  haiopens 
that,  having  been  exerted  once,  it  need  not  be 
exerted  again  for  the  same  purpose.  A  custom 
is  broken  down,  an  exceedingly  strong  tempt- 
ation has  been  overpowered,  and  its  strength 
so  destroyed  that  its  return  is  without  effect. 
Or  sometimes  the  act  of  the  will  takes  the 
form  of  deliberately  so   arranging  the  circum- 


90  Apparent  Conflict  between  [Lect. 

stances  of  life  that  a  dreaded  temptation  cannot 
return,  or  if  it  return  cannot  prevail ;  the  right 
eye  has  been  plucked  out,  the  right  hand  cut 
off,  and  the  sin  cannot  be  committed  even  if 
desired.  While  therefore  the  will  is  aWays 
free,  the  actual  interference  of  the  will  with 
the  life  is  not  so  frequent  as  to  interfere  with 
the  broad  general  rule  that  the  course  of  human 
conduct  is  practically  uniform.  In  fact  the 
will,  though  always  free,  only  asserts  its  free- 
dom by  obeying  duty  in  spite  of  inclination, 
by  disregarding  the  uniformity  of  nature  in 
order  to  maintain  the  higher  uniformity  of  the 
Moral  Law.  The  freedom  of  the  human  will 
is  but  the  assertion  in  particular  of  that  uni- 
versal supremacy  of  the  moral  over  the  physical 
in  the  last  resort,  which  is  an  essential  part  of 
the  very  essence  of  the  Moral  Law.  The  free- 
dom of  the  will  is  the  Moral  Law  breaking 
into  the  world  of  phenomena,  and  thus  behind 
the  free-will  of  man  stands  the  power  of  God. 

When  the  real  claim  of  the  will  for  freedom 
has  been  clearly  seized  by  the  mind,  it  becomes 
apparent  that  there  is  no  real  collision  between 
what  Science  asserts  and  what  Keligion  requires 


III.]     Science  and  Religion  on  Free- Will.       91 

us  to  believe.  Science  asserts  that  there  is 
evidence  to  show  that  an  exceedingly  large  pro- 
portion of  human  action  is  governed  by  fixed 
law.  Eeligion  requires  us  to  believe  that  the 
will  is  responsible  for  all  this  action,  not  be- 
cause it  does,  but  because  it  might  interfere. 
Science  is  not  able,  and  from  the  nature  of  the 
case  never  will  be  able  to  prove  that  the  range 
of  this  fixed  law  is  universal,  and  that  the  will 
never  does  interfere  to  vary  the  actions  from 
what  without  the  will  they  would  have  been. 
Science  will  never  be  able  to  prove  this,  because 
it  could  not  be  proved  except  by  a  universal 
induction,  and  a  universal  induction  is  impos- 
sible. At  present  there  is  no  approximation  to 
such  proof  Religion,  on  the  other  hand,  does 
not  call  on  us  to  believe  that  the  will  often 
interferes,  but  on  the  contrary  is  perpetually 
tellino:  us  that  it  does  not  interfere  as  often  as 
it  ought.  Eevealed  religion,  indeed,  has  always 
based  its  most  earnest  exhortations  on  the  re- 
luctance of  man  to  set  his  will  to  the  difficult 
task  of  contending  with  the  forces  of  his  nature, 
and  on  the  weakness  of  the  will  in  the  presence 
of  those  forces. 


92  Apparent  Conflict  between  [Lect. 

And  when  we  pursue  tins  thought  further  we 
see  that  for  such  creatures  as  we  are  the  sub- 
jection of  a  large  part  of  our  own  nature  to 
fixed  laws  is  as  necessary  for  our  dominion  over 
ourselves  as  the  fixity  of  external  nature  is 
necessary  for  our  dominion  over  the  world 
around  us.  The  fixity  of  a  large  part  of  our 
nature — nav,  of  all  but  the  whole  of  it — is  a 
moral  and  spiritual  necessity.  For  it  requires 
but  a  superficial  self-examination  to  discern  the 
indications  of  what  the  profoundest  research 
still  leaves  a  mystery — that  we  are  not  perfect 
creatures  of  our  own  kind — that  our  nature 
does  not  spontaneously  conform  to  the  Supreme 
Moral  Law — that  our  highest  and  best  consists 
not  in  complete  obedience  to  which  we  cannot 
attain,  but  in  a  perj)etual  upward  struggle. 
Now  such  a  struggle  demands  for  its  indispens- 
able condition  something  fixed  in  our  nature 
by  which  each  step  upwards  shall  be  made 
good  as  it  is  taken,  and  afford  a  firm  footing 
for  the  next  ascent.  If  there  were  nothing  in 
us  fixed  and  firm,  if  the  warfare  with  evil 
impulses,  wayward  affections,  overmastering 
appetites   had   to   be   carried   on   through    life 


III.]     Science  and  Religion  on  Free-Will.       93 

without  the  possibility  of  making  any  victory 
complete,  the  formation  of  a  perpetually  higher 
and  nobler  character  would  be  impossible  ;  our 
main  hope  in  this  life,  our  best  offering  to  God 
would  be  taken  away  from  us  ;  we  could  never 
give  our  bodies  to  be  a  living  sacrifice,  holy, 
acceptable  to  God  ;  w^e  could  give  our  separate 
acts  but  not  ourselves,  for  we  should  be  utterly 
unable  to  form  ourselves  into  fitness  for  such 
a  purpose.  The  task  given  to  the  will  is  not 
only  to  govern  the  actions  but  to  discipline  the 
nature  ;  but  discipline  is  impossible  where  there 
is  no  fixity  in  the  thing  to  be  disciplined. 

And  this  becomes  still  more  important  when 
we  search  more  deeply  and  perceive  that  not 
the  nature  only  but  the  will  itself  is  in  some 
strange  way  infected  with  evil.  We  can  hardly 
imagine  even  a  perfectly  pure  will  capable  of 
continuing  to  the  end  a  conflict  in  which  no 
progress  ever  was  or  could  be  made.  The  tre- 
mendous strain  of  fio-htinsf  with  an  enemv  that 
might  be  defeated  again  and  again  for  ever 
without  ever  sufiering  any  change  or  relaxing 
the  violence  of  any  attack  or  giving  the  slightest 
hope  of  any  relief,  would  seem   too   much   for 


94  Apparent  Conflict  between  [Lect. 

the  most  unearthly,  the  most  noble,  the  most 
godlike  of  human  wills.  But  wills  such  as 
ours,  penetrated  with  weakness,  perhaps  with 
treachery  to  their  own  best  aspirations,  how 
utterly  impossible  that  they  could  persevere 
through  such  a  hopeless  conflict. 

It  is  the  sustaining  hope  of  the  Christian 
that  he  shall  be  changed  from  glory  to  glory 
into  the  image  or  likeness  of  His  Lord,  and 
that  when  all  is  over  for  this  life  he  shall  be 
indeed  like  Him  and  see  Him  as  He  is.  But 
that  hope  is  never  presented  as  one  to  be 
realized  by  some  sudden  stroke  fashioning  the 
soul  anew  and  moulding  it  at  once  into  heavenly 
lineaments.  It  is  by  steady  and  sure  degrees 
that  the  Christian  believes  that  he  shall  be 
thus  blessed.  And  this  progress  rests  on  the 
fixed  rules  by  which  his  nature  is  governed, 
and  which  admit  of  the  character  being  gradually 
changed  by  the  life.  The  Christian  knows  that 
God  has  so  made  us  that  a  temptation  once 
overcome  is  permanently  weakened,  and  often 
overcome  is  at  last  altogether  expelled  ;  that 
appetites  restrained  are  in' the  end  subdued  and 
cost  but  little  effort  to  keep   down ;    that  bad 


III.]     Science  and  Religion  on  Free- Will.       95 

thoughts  perpetually  put  aside  at  last  return 
no  more ;  that  a  clearer  perception  of  duty  and 
a  more  resolute  obedience  to  its  call  makes  dutv 
itself  more  attractive,  fills  us  with  enthusiasm 
for  its  fulfilment,  draws  us  as  it  were  upwards, 
and  ennobles  the  whole  man.  The  Christian 
knows  that  the  thought  of  the  Supreme  Being, 
the  contemplation  of  His  excellency,  the  recog- 
nition of  Him  as  the  source  of  spiritual  life 
has  a  strange  power  to  transform,  and  ever- 
more to  transform  the  whole  man.  In  this 
knowledge  the  Christian  lives  his  life  and  fights 
his  battle.  And  what  is  this  but  a  knowledo;e 
that  he  has  a  nature  subject  to  fixed  laws, 
which  he  can  indeed  interfere  with,  but  without 
which  his  self- discipline  would  be  of  little 
value,  and  assuredly  could  not  long  continue. 

And  if  the  progress  of  Science  and  the  ex- 
amination of  human  nature  should  eventually 
restrict  more  closely  than  we  might  have  sup- 
posed the  length  to  which  the  interference  of 
the  wUl  can  go;  if  it  should  appear  that  the 
changes  which  we  can  make  at  any  one  moment 
in  ourselves  are  within  a  very  narrow  range, 
this,  too,  will  be  knowledge  that  can  be  used 


96  Apparent  Conflict,  &c. 

in  our  self-discipline  and  quite  as  mTich  perhaps 
in  our  mutual  moral  aid.  It  is  conceivable  that 
the  branch  of  science  which  treats  of  human 
nature  may  in  the  end  profoundly  modify  our 
modes  of  education,  and  our  hopes  of  what  can 
be  effected  by  it.  But  if  so  the  knowledge 
will  only  add  to  the  store  of  means  put  within 
our  reach  for  the  elevation  of  our  race.  And  we 
may  be  sure  that  nothing  of  this  sort  will  really 
affect  the  revelation  that  God  has  w^ritten  in 
our  souls  that  we  are  free  and  responsible 
beings,  and  cannot  get  quit  of  our  respon- 
sibility. 


LECTURE    IV. 

APPARENT  CONFLICT  BETWEEN 
RELIGION  AND  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  EVOLUTION. 


Foundation  of  the  doctrine  of  Evolution.  Great  develop- 
ment in  recent  times.  Objection  felt  by  many  religious 
men.  Alleged  to  destroy  argument  from  design.  Paley's 
argument  examined.  Doctrine  of  Evolution  adds  force  to 
the  argument,  and  removes  objections  to  it.  Argument 
from  progress  ;  from  beauty ;  from  unity.  The  conflict  not 
real. 


H 


LECTURE     IV. 

APPARENT  CONFLICT  BETAVEEN 
RELIGION  AND  THE  DOCTRINE  OF  EVOLUTION. 

'For  the  invisible  things  of  Him  from  the  creation  of  the 
world  are  clearly  seen,  being  understood  by  the  things 
that  are  made,  even  His  eternal  power  and  Godhead.' 
Romans  i.  20. 

nnHE  regularity  of  nature  is  the  first  postu- 
-*-  late  of  Science ;  but  it  requires  the  very 
slightest  observation  to  show  us  that,  along 
with  this  regularity,  there  exists  a  vast  irregu- 
larity which  Science  can  only  deal  with  by 
exclusion  from  its  province.  The  world  as  we 
see  it  is  full  of  changes ;  and  these  changes 
when  patiently  and  perseveringly  examined  are 
found  to  be  subject  to  invariable  or  almost  in- 
variable laws.  But  the  things  themselves  which 
thus  change  are  as  multifarious  as  the  changes 
which  they  undergo.  They  vary  infinitely  in 
quantity,  in  qualities,  in  arrangement  through- 

H  2 


lOO  Apparent  Conflict  betzveen  [Lect. 

out  s]Dace,  possibly  in  arrangement  throughout 
time.  Take  a  single  substance  such,  say,  as 
gold.  How  much  gold  there  is  in  the  whole 
universe,  and  where  it  is  situated,  we  not  only 
have  no  knowledge,  but  can  hardly  be  said  to  be 
on  the  way  to  have  knowledge.  Why  its  qualities 
are  what  they  are,  and  why  it  alone  possesses 
all  these  qualities  ;  how  long  it  has  existed, 
and  how  long  it  will  continue  to  exist,  these 
questions  we  are  unable  to  answer.  The  exist- 
ence of  the  many  forms  of  matter,  the  properties 
of  each  form,  the  distribution  of  each  :  all  this 
Science  must  in  the  last  resort  assume. 

But  I  say  in  the  last  resort.  For  it  is  possible, 
and  Science  soon  makes  it  evident  that  it  is  true, 
that  some  forms  of  matter  grow  out  of  other 
forms.  There  are  endless  combinations.  And 
the  growth  of  new  out  of  old  forms  is  of  ne- 
cessity a  sequence,  and  falls  imder  the  law  of 
invariability  of  sequences,  and  becomes  the 
subject-matter  of  Science.  As  in  each  separate 
case  Science  asserts  each  event  of  to-day  to  have 
followed  by  a  law  of  invariable  sequence  on  the 
events  of  yesterday;  the  earth  has  reached  the 
jorecise  point  in  its  orbit  now  which  was  deter- 


IV.]  Religion  and  the  Doctrine  of  Evolution.  loi 

mined  by  the  law  of  gravitation  as  applied  to 
its  motion  at  the  point  which  it  reached  a 
moment  ago ;  the  weather  of  the  present  hour 
has  come  by  meteorological  laws  out  of  the 
weather  of  the  last  hour  ;  the  crops  and  the 
flocks  now  found  on  the  surface  of  the  habitable 
earth  are  the  necessary  outcome  of  preceding 
harvests  and  preceding  flocks  and  of  all  that 
has  been  done  to  maintain  and  increase  them ; 
so,  too,  if  we  look  at  the  universe  as  a  whole, 
the  present  condition  of  that  whole  is,  if  the 
scientific  postulate  of  invariable  sequence  be 
admitted,  and  in  as  far  as  it  is  admitted,  the 
necessary  outcome  of  its  former  condition  ;  and 
all  the  various  forms  of  matter,  whether  living 
or  inanimate,  must  for  the  same  reason  and 
with  the  same  limitation  be  the  necessary  out- 
come of  preceding  forms  of  matter.  This  is  the 
foundation  of  the  doctrine  of  Evolution. 

Now  stated  in  this  abstract  form  this  doctrine 
will  be,  and  indeed  if  Science  be  admitted  at  all 
must  be,  accepted  by  everybody.  Even  the 
Eoman  Church,  which  holds  that  God  is  per- 
petually interfering  with  the  course  of  nature, 
either  in  the  interests  of  religious  truth  or  out 


102  Apparent  Conflict  between  [Lect. 

of  lovin2;kindness  to  His  creatures,  vet  will 
acknowledge  that  the  number  of  such  inter- 
ferences almost  disappears  in  comparison  of  the 
countless  millions  of  instances  in  which  there 
is  no  reason  to  believe  in  anv  interference  at 
all.  And  if  we  look  at  the  universe  as  a  whole, 
the  general  proposition  as  stated  above  is  quite 
unaffected  by  the  infinitesimal  exception  which 
is  to  be  made  by  a  believer  in  frequent 
miracles.  But  when  this  proposition  is  applied 
in  detail  it  at  once  introduces  the  possibility 
of  an  entirely  new  history  of  the  material  uni- 
verse. For  this  universe  as  we  see  it  is  almost 
entirely  made  up  of  composite  and  not  of  simple 
substances.  We  have  been  able  to  analyse  all 
the  substances  that  we  know  into  a  compara- 
tively small  number  of  simple  elements — some 
usually  solid,  some  liquid,  some  gaseous.  But 
these  simple  elements  are  rarely  found  uncom- 
bined  with  others ;  most  of  those  which  we 
meet  with  in  a  pure  state  have  been  taken 
out  of  combination  and  reduced  to  simplicity 
by  human  agency.  The  various  metals  that 
we  ordinarily  use  are  mostly  found  in  a  state 
of  ore,  and  we  do  not  generally  obtain  them 


IV.]  Religion  and  the  Doctrine  of  Evolution.  103 

pure  except  by  smelting.  The  air  we  breathe, 
though  not  a  compound,  is  a  mixture.  Tlie 
water  which  is  essential  to  our  life  is  a  com- 
pound. And,  if  we  pass  from  inorganic  to 
organic  substances,  all  vegetables  and  animals 
are  compound,  sustained  by  various  articles  of 
food  which  go  to  make  up  their  frames.  Now, 
how  have  these  compounds  been  formed  \  It 
is  quite  possible  that  some  of  them,  or  all  of 
them  to  some  extent,  may  have  been  formed 
from  the  first.  If  Science  could  go  back  to 
the  beginning  of  all  things,  which  it  obviously 
cannot,  it  might  find  the  composition  already 
accomplished,  and  be  compelled  to  start  with 
it  as  a  given  fact — a  fact  as  incapable  of  scien- 
tific explanation  as  the  existence  of  matter  at 
all.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  composition  and 
decomposition  is  a  matter  of  every- day  ex- 
perience. Our  very  food  could  not  nourish  us 
except  by  passing  through  these  processes  in 
our  bodies ;  and  by  the  same  processes  we 
prepare  much  of  our  food  before  consuming  it. 
May  not  Science  go  back  to  the  time  when 
these  processes  had  not  yet  begun?  May  not 
the  starting-point  of  the    history   of  the    uni- 


I04  Appm'e^it  Conflict  between  [Lect. 

verse  be  a  condition  in  which  the  simple  ele- 
ments were  still  uncombined  %  If  Science  could 
go  back  to  the  beginning  of  all  things,  might 
we  not  find  all  the  elements  of  material  things 
ready  indeed  for  the  action  of  the  inherent 
forces  which  would  presently  unite  them 
in  an  infinite  variety  of  combinations,  but  as 
yet  still  separate  from  each  other?  Scattered 
through  enormous  regions  of  space,  but  drawn 
together  by  the  force  of  gravitation ;  their 
original  heat,  whatever  it  may  have  been,  in- 
creased by  their  mutual  collision ;  made  to 
act  chemically  on  one  another  by  such  increase 
or  by  subsequent  decrease  of  temperature ; 
perpetually  approaching  nearer  to  the  forms 
into  which,  by  the  incessant  action  of  the  same 
forces,  the  present  universe  has  grown;  these 
elements,  and  the  working  of  the  several 
laws  of  their  own  proper  nature,  may  be 
enough  to  account  scientifically  for  all  the 
phenomena  that  we  observe.  We  do  not  even 
then  get  back  to  regularity.  Why  these  ele- 
ments, and  no  others ;  why  in  these  precise 
quantities ;  why  so  distributed  in  space ;  why 
endowed  with  these  properties:    still  are  ques- 


IV.]  Religion  and  the  Doctrine  of  EvohUion.  105 

tious  wliicli  Science  cannot  answer,  and  there 
seems  no  reason  to  expect  that  any  scientific 
answer  will  ever  be  possible.  Nay,  I  know 
not  whether  it  may  not  be  asserted  that  the 
impossibility  of  answermg  one  at  least  among 
these  questions  is  capable  of  demonstration. 
For  the  whole  system  of  things,  as  far  as  we 
know  it,  depends  on  the  perpetual  rotation  of  the 
heavenly  bodies ;  and  without  original  irregu- 
laritv  in  the  distribution  of  matter  no  motion 
of  rotation  could  ever  have  spontaneously  arisen. 
And  if  this  irregularity  be  thus  original.  Science 
can  give  no  account  of  it.  Science,  therefore, 
will  have  to  begin  with  assuming  certain  facts 
for  which  it  can  never  hope  to  account.  But 
it  may  begin  by  assuming  that,  speaking  roughly, 
the  universe  was  always  very  much  what  we 
see  it  now,  and  that  composition  and  decom- 
position have  always  nearly  balanced  each  other, 
and  that  there  have  been  from  the  beginning 
the  same  sun  and  moon  and  planets  and  stars 
in  the  sky,  the  same  animals  on  the  earth  and 
in  the  seas,  the  same  vegetation,  the  same 
minerals ;  and  that  though  there  have  been 
incessant  changes,  and  possibly  all  these  changes 


io6  Apparent  Conflict  between  [Lect. 


in  one  general  direction,  yet  these  changes  have 
never  amounted  to  what  would  furnish  a  scien- 
tific explanation  of  the  forms  which  matter  has 
assumed.     Or,  on  the  other  hand,  Science  may 
assert  the  possibility   of  going  back   to  a  far 
earlier  condition  of  our  material  system ;   may 
assert  that  all  the  forms  of  matter  have  grown 
up  under  the  action  of  laws  and  forces  still  at 
work ;    may  take   as   the   initial   state  of  our 
universe    one    or    many    enormous    clouds    of 
gaseous  matter,  and  endeavour  to  trace  with 
more    or    less    exactness    how   these   gradually 
formed  themselves  into  what  we  see.     Science 
has  lately  leaned  to  the  latter  alternative.     To 
a  believer  the  alternative  may  be  stated  thus: 
We  all    distinguish   between  the   original  cre- 
ation of  the  material  world  and  the  history  of 
it  ever  since.     And  we  have,  nay  all  men  have, 
been  accustomed  to  assign  to  the  original  cre- 
ation a  great  deal  that  Science  is  now  disposed 
to  assign  to  the  history.      But  the  distinction 
between    the    original   creation    and   the    sub- 
sequent   history   would   still   remain,    and    for 
ever  remain,  although  the  portion  assigned  to 
the  one  may  be  less,  and  that  assigned  to  the 


IV.]  Religion  and  the  Doctrine  of  Evohition.  107 

other  larger,  than  was  formerly  supposed. 
However  far  back  Science  may  be  able  to  push 
its  beginning,  there  still  must  lie  behind  that 
be^innino-  the  orio^inal  act  of  creation — creation 
not  of  matter  only,  but  of  the  various  kinds 
of  matter,  and  of  the  laws  governing  all  and 
each  of  those  kinds,  and  of  the  distribution  of 
this  matter  in  space. 

This  application  of  the  abstract  doctrine  of 
Evolution  gives  it  an  enormous  and  startling 
expansion  :  so  enormous  and  so  startling  that 
the  doctrine  itself  seems  absolutely  new.  To 
say  that  the  present  grows  by  regular  law  out 
of  the  past  is  one  thing  ;  to  say  that  it  has 
grown  out  of  a  distant  past  in  which  as  yet 
the  present  forms  of  life  upon  the  earth,  the 
present  vegetation,  the  seas  and  islands  and 
continents,  the  very  planet  itself,  the  sun  and 
moon,  were  not  yet  made — and  all  this  also 
by  regular  law — that  is  quite  another  thing. 
And  the  bearings  of  this  new  application  of 
Science  deserve  study. 

Now  it  seems  quite  plain  that  this  doctrine 
of  Evolution  is  in  no  sense  whatever  antago- 
nistic to  the  teachings  of  Eeligion,  though  it 


io8  Apparent  Conflict  between  [Lect. 

may  be,  and  that  we  shall  have  to  consider 
afterwards,  to  the  teachings  of  revelation.  Why 
then  should  religious  men  independently  of  its 
relation  to  revelation  shrink  from  it,  as  very 
many  unquestionably  do  \  The  reason  is  that, 
whilst  this  doctrine  leaves  the  truth  of  the 
existence  and  supremacy  of  God  exactly  where 
it  was,  it  cuts  away,  or  appears  to  cut  away, 
some  of  the  main  arguments  for  that  truth. 

Now,  in  regard  to  the  arguments  whereby  we 
have  been  accustomed  to  prove  or  to  corroborate 
the  existence  of  a  Supreme  Being,  it  is  plain 
that,  to  take  these  arguments  away  or  to  make  it 
impossible  to  use  them,  is  not  to  disprove  or  take 
away  the  truth  itself.  We  find  every  day  in- 
stances of  men  resting  their  faith  in  a  truth  on 
some  grounds  which  we  know  to  be  untenable,  and 
we  see  what  a  terrible  trial  it  sometimes  is  when 
they  find  out  that  this  is  so,  and  know  not  as 
yet  on  what  other  ground  they  are  to  take 
their  stand.  And  some  men  succumb  in  the 
trial  and  lose  their  faith  together  with  the 
argument  which  has  hitherto  supported  it.  But 
the  truth  still  stands  in  spite  of  the  failure  of 
some  to  keep  their  belief  in  it,  and  in  s|}ite  of 


IV.]  Religion  and  the  Doctrine  of  Evolution.  109 


the  impossibility  of  supporting  it  by  the  old 
arguments. 

And  when  men  have  become  accustomed  to 
rest  their  behef  on  new  grounds  the  loss  of  the 
old  arguments  is  never  found  to  be  a  very  serious 
matter.  Belief  in  revelation  has  been  shaken 
again  and  again  by  this  very  increase  of  know- 
ledge. It  was  unquestionably  a  dreadful  blow 
to  many  in  the  days  of  Galileo  to  find  that  the 
language  of  the  Bible  in  regard  to  the  movement 
of  the  earth  and  sun  was  not  scientifically 
correct.  It  was  a  dreadful  blow  to  many  in  the 
days  of  the  Eeformation  to  find  that  they  had 
been  misled  by  what  they  believed  to  be  an  in- 
fallible Church. 

Such  shocks  to  faith  try  the  mettle  of  men's 
moral  and  spiritual  convictions,  and  they  often 
refuse  altogether  to  hold  what  they  can  no  longer 
establish  by  the  arguments  which  have  hitherto 
been  to  them  the  decisive,  perhaps  the  sole 
decisive,  proofs. 

And  yet  in  spite  of  these  shocks  belief  in 
revelation  is  strong  still  in  men's  souls,  and  is 
clearly  not  yet  going  to  quit  the  world. 

But  let  us  go  on  to  consider  how  far  it  is  true 


1 1  o  Appare7it  Conflict  between  [Lect. 

that  the  arguments  which  have  hitherto  been 
regarded  as  proving  the  existence  of  a  Supreme 
Creator  are  really  affected  very  gravely  by  this 
doctrine  of  Evolution. 

The  main  argument,  which  at  first  appears  to 
be  thus  set  aside,  is  that  which  is  founded  on  the 
marks  of  design,  and  which  is  worked  out  in  his 
own  way  with  marvellous  skill  by  Paley  in  his 
Natural  Theology.  Paley  s  argument  rests  as  is 
well  known  on  the  evidence  of  design  in  created 
things,  and  these  evidences  he  chiefly  finds  in  the 
frame-work  of  organised  living  creatures.  He 
traces  with  much  most  interesting  detail  the 
many  marvellous  contrivances  by  which  animals 
of  various  kinds  are  adapted  to  the  circumstances 
in  which  they  are  to  live,  the  mechanism  which 
enables  them  to  obtain  their  food,  to  preserve 
their  species,  to  escape  their  enemies,  to  remove 
discomforts.  All  nature  thus  examined,  and 
particularly  all  animated  nature,  seems  full  of 
means  towards  ends,  and  those  ends  invariably 
such  as  a  beneficent  Creator  might  well  be 
supposed  to  have  in  view.  And  whilst  there  is 
undeniably  one  great  objection  to  his  whole 
argument,  namely  that  the  Creator  is  represented 


IV.]  Religion  and  the  Doctrine  of  Evolution.  1 1 1 

as  an  Artificer  rather  than  a  Creator,  as  over- 
coming difficulties  which  stood  in  His  way  rather 
than  as  an  Almighty  Being  fashioning  things 
according  to  His  Will,  yet  the  argument  thus 
drawn  from  evidence  of  design  remains  exceed- 
ingly powerful,  and  it  has  always  been  considered 
a  strong  corroboration  of  the  voice  within  which 
bids  us  believe  in  a  God.  Now  it  certainly  seems 
at  first  as  if  this  argument  were  altogether  de- 
stroyed. If  animals  were  not  made  as  we  see 
them,  but  evolved  by  natural  law,  still  more  if  it 
appear  that  their  wonderful  adaptation  to  their 
suiToundings  is  due  to  the  influence  of  those  sur- 
roundings, it  might  seem  as  if  we  could  no 
longer  speak  of  design  as  exhibited  in  their 
various  organs  ;  the  organs  we  might  say  grow 
of  themselves,  some  suitable,  and  some  unsuit- 
able to  the  life  of  the  creatures  to  which  they 
belonged,  and  the  unsuitable  have  perished  and 
the  suitable  have  survived. 

But  Paley  has  supplied  the  clue  to  the  answer. 
In  his  well-known  illustration  of  the  watch 
picked  up  on  the  heath  by  the  passing  traveller, 
he  points  out  that  the  evidence  of  design  is 
certainly  not  lessened  if  it  be  found  that  the 


112  Apparent  Conflict  behveen  [Lect. 

watch  was  so  coDstiucted  that,  in  course  of  time, 
it  produced  another  watch  like  itself.     He  was 
thinkinof  not  of  Evolution,  but  of  the  ordinary 
production  of  each  generation  of  animals  from 
the  preceding.     But  his  answer  can  be  pushed  a 
step  further,  and  we  may  with  equal  justice  re- 
mark that  we  should  certainly  not  believe  it  a 
proof  that  the  watch  had  come  into  existence 
without  design  if  we  found  that  it  produced  in 
course  of  time  not  merely   another  watch   but 
a  better.      It  would    become  more    marvellous 
than  ever  if  we  found  provision  thus  made  not 
merely  for  the  continuance  of  the  species  but  for 
the  perpetual  improvement  of  the  species.     It 
is  essential  to  animal  life  that  the  animal  should 
be  adapted  to  its  circumstances  ;    if  besides  pro- 
vision for  such  adaptation  in  each  generation  we 
find  provision  for  still  better  adaptation  in  future 
generations,  how  can  it  be  said  that  the  evidences 
of  design  are  diminished  %   Or  take  any  separate 
organ,  such  as  the  eye.     It  is  impossible  not  to 
believe  until  it  be  disproved  that  the  eye  was 
intended  to  see  with.    We  cannot  say  that  light 
was  made  for  the  eye,  because  light  subserves 
many  other  purposes  besides  that   of  enabling 


IV.]  Religion  and  the  Doctrine  of  EvohUion.  1 1 3 

eyes  to  see.  But  that  the  eye  was  intended  for 
light  there  is  so  strong  a  presumption  that  it 
cannot  easily  be  rebutted.  If  indeed  it  could  be 
shown  that  eyes  fulfilled  several  other  functions, 
or  that  species  of  animals  which  always  lived  in 
the  dark  still  had  fully -formed  eyes,  then  we 
might  say  that  the  connexion  between  the  eye 
of  an  animal  and  the  light  of  heaven  was  acci- 
dental. But  the  contrary  is  notoriously  the  case ; 
so  much  the  case  that  some  philosophers  have 
maintained  that  the  eye  was  formed  by  the  need 
for  seeing,  a  statement  which  I  need  take  no 
trouble  to  refute,  just  as  those  who  make  it  take 
no  trouble  to  establish,  I  will  not  say  its  truth, 
but  even  its  possibility.  But  the  fact,  if  it  be 
a  fact,  that  the  eye  was  not  originally  as  well 
adapted  to  see  with  as  it  is  now,  and  that  the 
power  of  perceiving  light  and  of  things  in  the 
light  grew  by  degrees,  does  not  show,  nor  even 
tend  to  show,  that  the  eye  was  not  intended  for 
seeing  with. 

Tlie  fact  is  that  the  doctrine  of  Evolution  does 
not  affect  the  substance  of  Paley's  argument  at 
all.  The  marks  of  design  which  he  has  pointed 
out  remain   marks    of  design  still   even  if  we 

I 


114  Apparent  Conflict  between  [Lect. 

accept  the  doctrine  of  Evolution  to  the  full. 
What  is  touched  by  this  doctrine  is  not  the 
evidence  of  design  but  the  mode  in  which  the 
design  was  executed.  Paley,  no  doubt,  wrote  on 
the  supposition  (and  at  that  time  it  was  hardly 
possible  to  admit  any  other  supposition)  that  we 
must  take  animals  to  have  come  into  existence 
very  nearly  such  as  we  now  know  them  :  and  his 
language,  on  the  whole,  was  adapted  to  that  sup- 
position. But  the  language  would  rather  need 
supplementing  than  changing  to  make  it  applic- 
able to  the  supposition  that  animals  were  formed 
by  Evolution.  In  the  one  case  the  execution 
follows  the  design  by  the  effect  of  a  direct  act 
of  creation  ;  in  the  other  case  the  design  is 
worked  out  by  a  slow  process.  In  the  one  case 
the  Creator  made  the  animals  at  once  such  as 
they  now  are ;  in  the  other  case  He  impressed 
on  certain  particles  of  matter  which,  either  at 
the  beginning  or  at  some  point  in  the  his- 
tory of  His  creation  He  endowed  with  life,  such 
inherent  powers  that  in  the  ordinary  course  of 
time  living  creatures  such  as  the  present  were 
developed.  The  creative  power  remains  the 
same  in  either  case  ;  the  design  with  which  that 


IV.]  Religion  and  the  Doctrine  of  Evolution.  115 

creative  power  was  exercised  remains  the  same. 
He  (lid  not  make  the  things,  we  may  say ;  no, 
but  He  made  them  make  themselves.  And 
surely  this  rather  adds  than  withdraws  force 
from  the  great  argument.  It  seems  in  itself 
something  more  majestic,  something  more  be- 
fitting Him  to  Whom  a  thousand  years  are  as 
one  day  and  one  day  as  a  thousand  years,  thus  to 
impress  His  Will  once  for  all  on  His  creation, 
and  provide  for  all  its  countless  variety  by  this 
one  original  impress,  than  by  special  acts  of 
creation  to  be  perpetually  modifying  what  He 
had  previously  made.  It  has  often  been  ob- 
jected to  Paley's  argument,  as  I  remarked  before, 
that  it  represents  the  Almighty  rather  as  an 
artificer  than  a  creator,  a  workman  dealing  w^ith 
somewhat  intractable  materials  and  showing 
marvellous  skill  in  overcoming  difficulties  rather 
than  a  beneficent  Being  making  all  things  in 
accordance  with  the  purposes  of  His  love.  But 
this  objection  disappears  when  we  put  the 
argument  into  the  shape  which  the  doctrine 
of  Evolution  demands  and  look  on  the  Almis^htv 
as  creating  the  original  elements  of  matter,  de- 
termining  their  number   and  their  properties, 

I  2 


ii6  Apparent  Co7iflict  between  [Lect. 

creating  the  law  of  gravitation  whereby  as  seems 
probable  the  worlds  have  been  formed,  creating 
the  various  laws  of  chemical  and  physical  action, 
by  which  inorganic  substances  have  been  com- 
bined, creating  above  all  the  law  of  life,  the 
mysterious  law  which  plainly  contains  such 
wonderful  possibilities  within  itself,  and  thus 
providing  for  the  ultimate  development  of  all 
the  many  wonders  of  nature. 

What  conception  of  foresight  and  purpose 
can  rise  above  that  which  imagines  all  history 
gathered  as  it  were  into  one  original  creative 
act  from  which  the  infinite  variety  of  the  Uni- 
verse has  come  and  more  is  coming  even  yet  \ 

And  yet  again,  it  is  a  common  objection  to 
Paley's  and  similar  arguments  that,  in  spite  of 
all  the  tokens  of  intelligence  and  beneficence 
in  the  creation,  there  is  so  much  of  the  contrary 
character.  How  much  there  is  of  apparently 
needless  pain  and  waste !  And  John  Stuart 
Mill  has  urged  that  either  we  must  suppose  the 
Creator  wanting  in  omnipotence  or  wanting  in 
kindness  to  have  left  His  creation  so  imperfect. 
The  answer  usually  given  is  that  our  know- 
ledge is  partial,  and,  could  we  see  the  whole,  the 


IV.]  Religion  a7id  the  Doctrine  of  Evolution.  117 

objection  would  probably  disappear.  But  what 
force  and  clearness  is  given  to  this  answer  by 
the  doctrine  of  Evolution  which  tells  us  that  we 
are  looking  at  a  work  which  is  not  yet  finished, 
and  that  the  imperfections  are  a  necessary  part 
of  a  large  design  the  general  outlines  of  which 
we  may  already  trace,  but  the  ultimate  issue  of 
which,  with  all  its  details,  is  still  beyond  our 
perception  !  The  imperfections  are  like  the  im- 
perfections of  a  half-completed  picture  not  yet 
ready  to  be  seen ;  they  are  like  the  bud  which 
Avill  presently  be  a  beautiful  flower,  or  the  larva 
of  a  beautiful  and  gorgeous  insect ;  they  are  like 
the  imperfections  in  the  moral  character  of  a  saint 
who  nevertheless  is  changing  from  glory  to  glory. 
To  the  many  partial  designs  which  Paley's 
Natural  Theology  points  out,  and  which  still 
remain  what  they  were,  the  doctrine  of  Evolu- 
tion adds  the  design  of  a  perpetual  progress. 
Things  are  so  arranged  that  animals  are  per- 
petually better  adapted  to  the  life  they  have 
to  live.  The  very  phrase  which  we  commonly 
use  to  sum  up  Darwin's  teaching,  the  survival  of 
the  fittest,  implies  a  perpetual  diminution  of  pain 
and  increase  of  enjoyment  for  all  creatures  that 


ii8  Apparent  Conflict  between  [Lect. 


can  feel.  If  they  are  fitter  for  their  surround- 
ings, most  certainly  they  will  find  life  easier  to 
live.  And,  as  if  to  mark  still  more  plainly  the 
beneficence  of  the  whole  work,  the  less  deve- 
loped creatures,  as  we  have  every  reason  to 
believe,  are  less  sensible  of  pain  and  pleasure ; 
so  that  enjoyment  appears  to  grow  with  the 
capacity  for  enjoyment,  and  suffering  diminishes 
as  sensitivity  to  suffering  increases.  And  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  this  is  in  many  ways  the 
tendency  of  nature.  Beasts  of  prey  are  diminish- 
ing ;  life  is  easier  for  man  and  easier  for  all 
animals  that  are  under  his  care  :  many  species 
of  animals  perish  as  man  fills  and  subjugates  the 
globe,  but  those  that  remain  have  far  greater 
happiness  in  their  lives.  In  fact,  all  the  pur- 
poses which  Paley  traces  in  the  formation  of 
living  creatures  are  not  only  fulfilled  by  what 
the  Creator  has  done,  but  are  better  fulfilled  from 
age  to  age.  And  though  the  progress  may  be 
exceedingly  slow,  the  nature  of  the  progress  can- 
not be  mistaken. 

If  the  Natural  Theology  were  now  to  be  writ- 
ten, the  stress  of  the  argument  would  be  put  on 
a  different  place.     Instead,  of  insisting  wholly  or 


IV.]  Religion  and  the  Doctrine  of  Evolntion.  119 

mainly  on  the  wonderful  adaptation  of  means 
to  ends  in  the  structure  of  living  animals  and 
plants,  we  should  look  rather  to  the  original 
properties  impressed  on  matter  from  the  be- 
ginning, and  on  the  beneficent  consequences  that 
have  flowed  from  those  properties.  We  should 
dwell  on  the  peculiar  properties  that  must  be 
inherent  in  the  molecules  of  the  original  ele- 
ments to  cause  such  results  to  follow  from  their 
action  and  reaction  on  one  another.  We  should 
dwell  on  the  part  played  in  the  Universe  by  the 
properties  of  oxygen,  the  great  purifier,  and  one 
of  the  great  heat-givers  ;  of  carbon,  the  chief 
light-giver  and  heat-giver ;  of  water,  the  great 
solvent  and  the  storehouse  of  heat ;  of  the  at- 
mosphere and  the  vapours  in  it,  the  protector 
of  the  earth  which  it  surrounds.  We  should 
trace  the  beneficent  effects  of  pain  and  pleasure 
in  their  subservience  to  the  purification  of  life. 
The  marks  of  a  purpose  impressed  from  the  first 
on  all  creation  would  be  even  more  visible  than 
ever  before. 

And  we  could  not  overlook  the  beauty  of 
Nature  and  of  all  created  things  as  part  of  that 
purpose  coming  in  many  cases  out  of  that  very 


I20  Apparent  Conflict  between  [Lect. 

survival  of  the  fittest  of  which  Darwin  has 
spoken,  and  yet  a  distinct  object  in  itself.  For 
this  beauty  there  is  no  need  in  the  economy  of 
nature  whatever.  The  beauty  of  the  starry 
heavens,  which  so  impressed  the  mind  of  Kant 
that  he  put  it  by  the  side  of  the  Moral  Law 
as  proving  the  existence  of  a  Creator,  is  not 
wanted  either  for  the  evolution  of  the  world 
or  for  the  preservation  of  living  creatures. 
Our  enjoyment  of  it  is  a  super-added  gift  cer- 
tainly not  necessary  for  the  existence  or  the 
continuance  of  our  species.  The  beauty  of 
flowers,  according  to  the  teaching  of  the  doc- 
trine of  Evolution,  has  generally  grown  out  of 
the  need  which  makes  it  good  for  plants  to 
attract  insects.  The  insects  carry  the  pollen 
from  flower  to  flower,  and  thus  as  it  were  mix 
the  breed  ;  and  this  produces  the  stronger  plants 
which  outlive  the  competition  of  the  rest.  The 
plants,  therefore,  which  are  most  conspicuous 
gain  an  advantage  by  attracting  insects  most. 
That  successive  generations  of  flowers  should 
thus  show  brighter  and  brighter  colours  is  in- 
telligible. But  the  beauty  of  flowers  is  far 
more  than  mere  conspicuousness  of  colours  even 


IV.]  Religion  and  the  Doctrine  of  Evolution.  121 

tbouo'li  tliat  be  the  main  ino-redient.  Whv 
should  the  wonderful  grace,  and  delicacy,  and 
harmony  of  tint  be  added  1  Is  all  this  mere 
chance  \  Is  all  this  superfluity  pervading  the 
whole  world  and  perpetually  supplying  to  the 
highest  of  living  creatures,  and  that  too  in  a 
real  proportion  to  his  superiority,  the  most  re- 
fined and  elevating  of  pleasures,  an  accident 
without  any  purpose  at  all  %  If  Evolution  has 
produced  the  world  such  as  we  see  and  all  its 
endless  beauty,  it  has  bestowed  on  our  own 
dwelling-place  in  lavish  abundance  and  in  mar- 
vellous perfection  that  on  which  men  spend 
their  substance  without  stint,  that  which  thev 
value  above  all  but  downriofht  necessities,  that 
which  they  admire  beyond  all  except  the  Law  of 
Duty  itself.  We  cannot  think  that  this  is  not 
designed,  nor  that  the  Artist  who  produced  it 
was  blind  to  what  was  coming  out  of  His  work. 
Once  more,  the  doctrine  of  Evolution  restores 
to  the  science  of  Nature  the  unity  which  we 
should  expect  in  the  creation  of  God.  Paley's 
argument  proved  design,  but  included  the  possi- 
bility of  many  designers.  Not  one  design,  but 
many  separate  designs,  all  no  doubt  of  the  same 


122  Apparent  Conflict  between  [Lect. 

character,  but  all  worked  out  independently  of 
one  another,  is  the  picture  that  he  puts  before 
us.  But  the  doctrine  of  Evolution  binds  all 
existing  things  on  earth  into  one.  Every  mineral, 
every  plant,  every  animal  has  such  properties 
that  it  benefits  other  things  beside  itself  and  de- 
rives benefit  in  turn.  The  insect  developes  the 
plant,  and  the  plant  the  insect ;  the  brute  aids 
in  the  evolution  of  the  man,  and  the  man  in  that 
of  the  brute.  All  things  are  embraced  in  one 
great  design  beginning  with  the  very  creation. 
He  who  uses  the  doctrine  of  Evolution  to  prove 
that  no  intelligence  planned  the  world,  is  under- 
taking the  self-contradictory  task  of  showing  that 
a  great  machine  has  no  purpose  by  tracing  in 
detail  the  marvellous  complexity  of  its  parts, 
and  the  still  more  marvellous  precision  with 
which  all  work  together  to  produce  a  common 
result. 

To  conclude,  the  doctrine  of  Evolution  leaves 
the  argument  for  an  intelligent  Creator  and  Go- 
vernor of  the  world  stronger  than  it  was  before. 
There  is  still  as  much  as  ever  the  proof  of  an  in- 
telligent purpose  pervading  all  creation.  The 
difierence  is  that  the  execution  of  that  purpose 


IV.]  Religion  and  the  Doctrine  of  EvohUion.  123 


belongs  more  to  the  original  act  of  creation, 
less  to  acts  of  government  since.  There  is  more 
divine  foresight,  there  is  less  divine  interposi- 
tion ;  and  whatever  has  been  taken  from  the 
latter  has  been  added  to  the  former. 

Some  scientific  students  of  Nature  may  fancy 
they  can  deduce  in  the  working  out  of  the  theory 
results  inconsistent  with  religious  belief ;  and  in 
a  future  Lecture  these  will  have  to  be  examined ; 
and  it  is  possible  that  the  theory  may  be  so  pre- 
sented as  to  be  inconsistent  with  the  teaching  of 
Kevelation.  But  whatever  may  be  the  relation 
of  the  doctrine  of  Evolution  to  Eevelation,  it 
cannot  be  said  that  this  doctrine  is  antagonistic 
to  Religion  in  its  essence.  The  progress  of  Science 
in  this  direction  will  assuredly  end  in  helping 
men  to  believe  with  more  assurance  than  ever 
that  the  Lord  by  wisdom  hath  founded  the 
earth,  by  understanding  hath  He  estabhshed  the 
heavens. 


LECTURE    V. 

EEVELATION  THE  MEANS  OF  DEVELOPING  AND 
COMPLETING  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 


The  evolution  of  Knowledge.  Does  not  affect  the  truth 
of  Science.  Nor  of  Religion.  Special  characteristic  of 
evolution  of  Religious  Knowledge,  that  it  is  due  to  Reve- 
lation. All  higher  Religions  have  claimed  to  be  Revela- 
tions. The  evolution  of  Religious  Knowledge  in  the  Old 
Testament ;  yet  the  Old  Testament  a  Revelation.  Still 
more  the  New  Testament.  The  miraculous  element  in 
Revelation.  Its  place  and  need.  Harmony  of  this  mode 
of  evolution  with  the  teaching  of  the  Spiritual  Faculty. 


LECTURE    V. 

EEVELATION  THE  MEANS  OF  DEVELOPING  AND 
COMPLETING  SPIRITUAL  KNOWLEDGE. 

'God,  who  at  sundry  times  and  in  divers  manners  spake 
in  time  past  to  the  Fathers  by  the  Prophets,  hath  in 
these  last  days  spoken  to  us  by  His  Son.'    Hebrews  i.  i. 

THE  doctrine  of  Evolution  has  been  applied 
not  only  to  the  formation  of  all  created 
things,  but  to  the  development  of  human  know- 
ledge ;  and  this  with  perfect  justice,  though 
with  some  risk  of  misunderstanding.  It  is  cer- 
tain, and,  indeed,  it  is  obvious,  that  knowledge 
grows.  The  ordinary  experience  of  mankind 
becomes  larger  and  clearer  in  the  course  of  time, 
and  the  systematised  experience  which  we  call 
Science  makes  the  same  progress  in  still  greater 
measure  and  with  more  assurance. 

Our  Science  has  been  built  on  the  labours  of 
scientific  men  in  past  ages.    New  generalisations 


128       Revelation  the  means  of  developin<^     [Lect. 

imagined  by  one  thinker,  new  crucial  experi- 
ments devised  by  another,  new  instruments  of 
observation  invented  bv  another, — these  have 
been  the  steps  by  which  Science  has  grown  and 
established  its  authoritv  and  enlaro;ed  its  do- 
minion.  When  or  by  whom  the  first  steps  were 
made  we  have  no  record.  No  mathematician 
that  ever  lived  showed  greater  natural  power  of 
intellect  than  he,  whoever  he  was,  who  first  saw 
that  the  singular  contained  the  universal ;  but  we 
know  neither  his  name  nor  his  age,  nor  his  birth- 
place nor  his  race.  But  after  those  first  steps 
had  been  taken,  we  know  who  have  been  the 
leaders  in  scientific  advance.  And  we  know 
what  they  have  done,  and  what  they  are  doing ; 
and  we  can  conjecture  the  direction  in  which 
further  advances  will  be  made.  And  so  we  can 
trace  the  development  of  this  kind  of  knowledge, 
and  in  a  certain  and  very  real  sense  this  develop- 
ment may  be  called  an  evolution. 

But  there  is  this  difference  between  the  evo- 
lution of  nature  and  the  evolution  of  the  science 
of  nature.  The  evolution  of  nature  results  in 
the  existence  of  forms  which  did  not  exist 
before ;   the  evolution  of  knowledo;e  results  in 


v.]     and  completing  Spiritual  Knowledge.      129 

the  perception  of  laws  which  were  already  in 
existence. 

The  knowledge  grows,  but  the  things  known 
remain.  The  knowledge  is  not  treated  as  if  in- 
dependent of  the  things  known  or  believed  to 
be  known,  as  a  phenomenon  belonging  merely  to 
the  human  mind,  with  beginnings  and  laws  and 
consequences  and  history  of  its  own.  And,  con- 
sequently, its  having  a  regular  growth  is  not 
used  as  an  argument  against  its  substantial 
truth. 

The  Science  of  Mathematics,  for  instance,  has 
a  history;  but  no  mathematician  will  admit  that 
the  fact  that  it  has  a  history  affects  its  claims 
to  acceptance  as  truth.  We  may  ask,  how 
men  have  been  brought  to  believe  the  deduc- 
tions of  the  higher  mathematics,  and  we  may 
answer  our  own  question  by  tracing  the  steps  ; 
but  our  conviction  is  not  shaken  that  these 
deductions  are  true. 

And  so,  too,  we  can  trace  the  steps  by  -which 
the  great  generalisations  of  Science  have  been 
reached,  and  we  may  show  that  Kepler  grew 
out  of  Copernicus,  and  Newton  out  of  Kepler ; 
but  the  proof  that  the  knowledge  of  one  truth 

K 


1 30     Revelation  tlie  means  of  developing      [Lect. 

has  been  evolved  out  of  the  knowledge  of  an- 
other, and  that  out  of  the  knowledge  of  another, 
is  not  used  to  show  that  all  this  Science  has 
nothing  to  do  with  truth  at  all,  but  is  only  a 
natural  growth  of  human  thought.  Science  has 
grown  through  all  manner  of  mistakes — mistakes 
made  by  the  greatest  thinkers  and  observers, 
mistakes  which  men  ignorantly  laugh  at  now, 
as  their  own  mistakes  will  be  no  doubt  laughed 
at  in  turn  hereafter.  But  we  do  not,  therefore, 
treat  scientific  thought  as  nothing  more  than  one 
of  the  phenomena  of  humanity ;  ways  of  think- 
ing which  necessarily  grew  out  of  the  conditions 
in  which  men  have  existed,  but  sufficiently  ac- 
counted for  by  their  origin  and  mode  of  growth 
having  been  shown,  and  having  no  solidity  of 
their  own. 

What  has  been  said  of  Science  mav  be  said 
also  of  Keligion.  Religion  also  has  had  its  de- 
velopment, and  in  some  respects  a  development 
parallel  to  that  of  Science. 

It  is  possible  to  trace  the  steps  by  which 
men  have  obtained  an  ever  larger  and  fuller 
knowledge  of  the  Supreme  Law  of  Right,  a 
clearer  perception  of  its  application,  of  its  logical 


v.]     and  completing  Spiritual  Knowledge.      131 


results,  of  its  relation  to  life,  to  conduct,  to 
belief.  It  has  grown  through,  mistakes  as 
Science  has.  There  has  been  false  Eeligion,  as 
there  has  been  false  Science.  Unsound  prin- 
ciples of  conduct  have  been  inculcated  in  Eeli- 
gion as  unsound  generalisations  have  been  set  up 
in  Science.  There  have  been  improper  objects 
of  reverence  in  Eeligion,  as  there  have  been  im- 
possible aims  proposed  for  scientific  investiga- 
tion. Ezekiel  rises  above  the  doctrine  that  the 
children  are  punished  for  the  sins  of  their  parents, 
just  as  Galileo  rises  above  the  doctrine  that 
nature  abhors  a  vacuum.  The  parallel  is  all  the 
more  complete  in  that  in  many  cases  false  reli- 
gions have  been  also  false  sciences.  The  prayer  to 
the  fetish  for  rain  is  as  contrary  to  true  religion 
as  it  is  contrary  to  true  science.  Many  false 
rehgions  are  most  easily  overthrown  by  scientific 
instruction.  Many  false  sciences  begin  to  totter 
when  the  believers  in  them  are  taught  true 
religion.  The  ordinary  superstitions  which  have 
so  strong  a  hold  on  weak  characters  and  un- 
instructed  minds,  are  as  inconsistent  with  true 
faith  in  God  as  with  reasonable  knowledge  of 
natxire.     Science  grows,  but  the  facts,  whether 

K  2 


132      Revelation  the  means  of  developing      [Lect. 

laws  or  instances  of  the  operations  of  those  laws, 
are  not  affected  by  that  growth.  And  Keligion 
grows,  but  the  facts  of  which  it  takes  cognisance 
are  not  affected  by  that  growth.  Neither  in  the 
one  case  nor  in  the  other  is  the  fact  that  there 
has  been  a  development  any  argument  to  show 
that  the  belief  thus  developed  has  no  real  foun- 
dation. The  pure  subjectivity  of  Keligion,to  use 
technical  language,  is  no  more  proved  by  this 
argument  than  the  pure  subjectivity  of  Science. 
But  there  is  one  most  important  particular  in 
which  the  development  of  Keligion  entirely  differs 
from  the  development  of  Science.  The  leaders 
of  scientific  thought,  from  the  time  that  Science 
has  been  conscious  of  itself,  have  never  claimed 
direct  divine  instruction.  For  a  long  time,  in- 
deed, scientific  thought  rested  largely  on  tradi- 
tion, and  that  tradition  was  handed  on  from 
generation  to  generation  without  any  examina- 
tion into  its  foundations.  The  stores  of  past 
observations  seemed  so  very  much  larger  in 
quantity  than  any  that  men  could  add  in  their 
own  day,  that  it  was  natural  to  give  more  weight 
to  what  was  received  than  to  what  was  newly 
observed.     The  experience  of  each  generation  in 


v.]     and  completing  Spirihial  Knowledge.      133 

succession  seemed  nothing  in  comparison  with 
the  accumulated  experience  of  all  preceding 
generations.  And  in  many  cases  old  traditions 
stopped  the  growth  of  Science  by  preventing  the 
acceptance  of  observations  inconsistent  with 
them.  But  such  old  traditions  never  claimed  to 
rest  on  a  revelation  from  God  ;  or,  if  such  a 
claim  was  made  here  and  there,  it  never  had 
strength  enough  to  root  itself  in  Science  and 
form  part  of  the  recognised  authority  on  which 
Science  stood. 

Science,  from  the  time  when  it  recognised 
itself  as  Science,  has  owed  its  development  to 
observation  of  nature,  and  long  before  it  shook 
off  the  fetters  of  unexamined  tradition  it  had  dis- 
claimed, even  for  that  tradition,  any  other  basis 
than  this.  But  not  so  Eehgion.  Many  religions, 
and  among  them  the  purer  and  higher  religions, 
in  proportion  to  their  nearer  approach  to  perfec- 
tion, have  claimed  to  rest  on  a  Divine  Bevelation, 
and  to  be  something  more  than  either  specula- 
tions of  philosophic  observers  of  nature,  or  de- 
ductions from  innate  principles  of  reason  or 
conscience.  Not  thinkers,  but  proj^hets,  or  men 
claiming  to  be  prophets,  have  given  the  purest 


134      Revelation  the  means  of  developing      [Lect. 

religions  to  their  disciples  among  mankind.  It 
has  always  been  possible  to  bring  all  religious 
teaching  to  the  bar  of  conscience ;  it  has  been 
possible  to  put  all  religious  teaching  to  logical 
examination ;  to  systematise  its  precepts,  whether 
of  faith  or  conduct ;  to  inquire  into  its  funda- 
mental principles,  and  to  ask  for  the  authority 
on  which  the  whole  teaching  rests.  But  these 
applications  of  our  intellectual  faculties  to  Ee- 
ligion  have  always  been  admitted  as  coming 
after,  not  as  preceding,  the  teaching  to  which 
they  are  made.  The  prophet  does  sometimes 
reason  when  he  is  deducing  from  principles 
already  accepted,  new  precepts,  or  new  pro- 
hibitions ;  but  he  does  not  confine  himself  to 
such  reasoning  in  the  fulfilment  of  his  mission. 
He  professes  to  have  a  message  to  give.  He  will 
accredit  it  by  such  means  as  He  supplies  Who  has 
sent  him  with  this  message.  He  will,  in  order 
to  open  the  consciences  of  his  hearers,  appeal  to 
past  revelations  which  they  have  already  re- 
ceived, and  with  which  his  new  message  is  in 
thorough  harmony;  but  he  often  appeals  also 
to  his  power  over  nature  to  bear  witness  that 
the  Lord  of  nature  has  sent  him.     The  Hebrew 


v.]     and  completing  Spiritical  Knowledge.      135 

prophet  will  appeal  to  the  teaching  of  the  Law, 
will  repeat  the  old  revelation  with  its  old  un- 
shaken and  unshakeable  precepts,  but  he  will 
not  stop  there :  he  will  also  give  signs  from  the 
Lord  to  prove  that  he  has  a  right  to  the  title  of 
prophet  which  he  claims.  Armed  with  this  title, 
he  will  go  on  to  predict  the  coming  of  the  Great 
Eestorer,  the  Messiah;  he  will  insist  on  the 
judgment  of  all  things,  sure  to  be  passed  in  its 
appointed  day ;  he  will  hint  at  the  immortality 
of  the  soul,  and  the  execution  of  the  Almighty 
justice  on  every  man  that  lives. 

It  is  probable  enough  that  many  of  the  inferior 
religions  have  grown  up  with  no  such  claim  at 
aD.  The  worship  of  ancestors,  where  it  has  pre- 
vailed, has  very  likely,  as  has  been  suggested, 
grown  out  of  dreams,  in  which  loving  memory 
has  brought  back  in  sleep  vivid  images  of  the 
dead  who  were  reverenced  while  they  lived,  and 
cannot  be  readily  forgotten  after  death.  Such 
worship  barely  attains  to  what  may  be  called 
in  strictness  a  religion.  Its  connexion  with  the 
spiritual  faculty,  the  true  seat  of  religion,  is  weak 
and  vague.  It  is  like  the  honour  paid  to  a 
sovereign  residing  in  a  distant  capital,  with  only 


136     Revelation  the  means  of  developing      [Lect. 

the  difference  that  those  who  receive  this  wor- 
ship are  supposed  to  reside  not  in  a  distant 
capital,  but  in  another  world.  So,  too,  the 
worship  of  fetishes,  of  trees,  of  serpents,  of  the 
heavenly  bodies,  while  they  have  some  of  the 
inferior  elements  of  religion  in  them,  yet  hardly 
deserve  to  be  called  religions.  There  is  in  them 
the  sentiment  of  fear,  the  acknowledgment  of 
persons  or  some  resemblance  of  persons  imper- 
ceptible by  the  senses ;  the  acknowledgment  of 
powers  possessed  by  these  persons.  But  the 
central  idea  of  a  rule  of  holiness  is  either  alto- 
gether wanting,  or  so  very  feeble  and  indistinct 
as  to  contain  no  promise  of  developing  into 
ultimate  supremacy.  These  religions  do  not 
often  lay  claim  to  a  revelation  from  a  supreme 
authority.  And  they  have  withered  away  with 
the  growth  of  knowledge  and  with  clearer  per- 
ceptions of  what  Eeligion  must  be  if  it  is  to  exist 
at  all. 

All  the  higher  religions  have  claimed  to  rest 
on  a  divine  revelation,  and  the  Christian  Re- 
ligion on  a  series  of  such  revelations.  The 
Christian  Religion  does  not  profess  (as  does 
for  instance  the  Mahommedan)  to  be  wrapped 


v.]     and  completing  Spiritual  Knowledge.     137 

up  in  one  divine  communication  made  to  one 
man  and  admitting  thereafter  of  no  modifica- 
tions. Though  resting  on  divine  revelation  it 
is  professedly  a  development,  and  is  thus  in 
harmony  with  the  Creator's  operations  in  na- 
ture. Whether  we  consider  what  is  taught 
concerning  the  heavenly  Moral  Law,  or  con- 
cerning human  nature  and  its  moral  and 
spiritual  needs,  or  concerning  Almighty  God 
and  His  dealings  with  us  His  creatures,  it  is 
undeniable  that  the  teaching  of  the  Bible  is 
quite  different  at  the  end  from  what  it  is  at 
the  beginning. 

The  New  Testament  considered  bv  itself  as 
a  body  of  teaching  is  such  an  advance  on  all 
that  preceded  it  as  to  be  quite  unique  in  the 
history  of  the  world.  The  ideas  conveyed  in 
the  Old  Testament  are  absorbed,  transformed, 
completed,  so  as  to  make  them  as  a  whole 
entirely  new;  and  to  these  are  added  entirely 
new  ideas  sufficient  by  themselves  to  form  a 
whole  system  of  doctrine.  And  because  of 
this  it  is  difficult  to  speak  of  the  new  teaching 
as  having  grown  out  of  the  old. 

But  the  Old  Testament  covers  many  centuries. 


138      Revelation  the  means  of  developing      [Lect. 

and  within  its  range  we  can  trace  a  steady 
growth,  and  that  growth  always  of  the  same 
character,  and  always  pointing  towards  what 
the  Gospel  finally  revealed.  The  strength  of 
the  moral  sentiment  in  the  earlier  books  is 
always  assigned  to  the  belief  in,  and  reverence 
for,  Almighty  God.  It  is  evidently  held  to  be 
more  important  to  believe  m  God  and  to  fear 
Him  than  to  see  the  perfection  of  His  holiness. 
If  we  distinguish  between  Religion  and  Mo- 
rality, Religion  is  made  the  more  important 
of  the  two.  It  is  more  important  to  recognise 
that  the  holy  God  exists  and  reigns  than  to 
see  clearly  in  what  His  holiness,  and  indeed 
all  holiness,  consists.  The  sentiment  of  reve- 
rence is  more  important  than  the  perception 
of  that  universality  which  we  now  know  to 
be  the  essential  characteristic  of  the  Moral 
Law.  In  analysing  the  origin  and  nature  of 
Religion  in  the  second  of  these  Lectures,  it 
was  necessary  to  follow  the  order  of  thought, 
and  beginning  with  Duty  to  end  vdth  God. 
But  the  order  of  fact  is  not  the  same.  In 
actual  fact  man  began  with  God  and  ends  with 
a  clearer  perception  of  Duty.     Hence  in  aU  the 


v.]     arid  completing  Spiritual  Knowledge.     1 39 

earlier  stages  the  morality  is  imperfect.  The 
profaneness  of  Esau  is  a  serious  offence.  The 
■ungenerous  temper,  the  unfairness  and  dupli- 
city of  Jacob  are  light  in  comparison.  Truth 
is  not  an  essential.  Blood-shedding  and  im- 
purity when  in  horrible  excess  are  treated  as 
most  grievous  sins  ;  but  restrained  within  limits 
are  easily  condoned.  Women  are  placed  below 
their  true  and  natural  place ;  polygamy  if  not 
distinctly  allowed  is  certainly  condoned ;  di- 
vorce is  permitted  on  one  side,  not  on  the 
other.  Slavery  is  allowed  though  put  under 
regulation.  But  the  unity  and  spirituality  of 
God  are  guarded  with  the  strongest  sanctions, 
and  nothing  could  be  said  agaiust  idolatry  and 
polytheism  now,  in  sterner  and  clearer  language 
than  was  used  then.  The  reverence  for  God 
required  then  was  as  great  as  the  reverence 
required  now.  But  the  conception  of  the  holi- 
ness which  is  the  main  object  of  that  reverence 
has  changed ;  has  in  fact  been  purified  and 
cleared.  And  the  change  is  traceable  in  the 
Old  Testament.  The  prophets  teach  a  higher 
morality  than  is  found  in  the  earlier  books. 
Cruelty  is  condemned  as  it  had  not  been  before. 


140      Revelation  the  means  of  developing     [Lect. 

The  heathen  are  not  regarded  as  outside  God's 
love,  and  the  future  embraces  them  in  His 
mercy  even  if  the  present  does  not.  Con- 
science begins  to  be  recognised  and  appealed 
to.  Idolatry  is  not  merely  forbidden,  its  folly 
is  exposed ;  it  is  treated  not  only  with  con- 
demnation, but  with  scorn.  Individual  re- 
sponsibility is  insisted  on.  Children  are  not 
held  responsible  for  their  fathers,  though  the 
inheritance  of  moral  evil  and  of  the  conse- 
quences of  moral  evil  is  never  denied.  And 
even  trust  in  God  rises  to  a  higher  level  in 
Habakkuk's  declaration  that  that  trust  shall 
never  be  shaken  by  any  calamity  that  may 
befall  him,  than  in  the  earlier  belief  that  cala- 
mities would  never  befall  those  who  held  fast 
that  trust. 

If  we  review  this  progress  in  moral  teaching 
we  recognise  that  it  corresponds  to  the  natural 
and  for  the  most  part  unconscious  working  of 
that  instinctive  test  which,  as  was  pointed  out 
before,  we  apply  to  all  moral  questions,  the 
test  of  universality.  The  pivots  of  all  the  pro- 
phetical teaching  are  the  incessant  inculcation 
of  justice   and  mercy;   justice  which  requires 


T.]     and  completing  Spiritual  Knowledge.      141 

us  to  recognise  the  rights  of  others  side  by 
side  with  our  own  ;  mercy  which  demands  our 
sympathy  with  the  feelings  of  other  creatures 
that  can  feel. 

We  are  bound  to  recognise  the  claims  of 
others  to  equal  treatment  with  ourselves,  and 
any  refusal  or  apparent  refusal  to  do  so  must 
be  justified  by  a  universal  rule  applicable  to 
all  alike.  The  perpetual  attempt  to  justify 
exceptions  in  this  way  is  sure  to  end  in  di- 
minishing the  number  of  those  exceptions.  If 
we  are  compelled  to  think  much  of  the  position 
of  woman  in  marriage,  we  are  sure  at  last  to 
come  to  Malachi's  declaration  that  God  hateth 
putting  away.  If  we  are  compelled  to  think 
of  the  position  of  slaves,  we  cannot  continue 
for  ever  to  believe  that  there  are  some  beings 
with  consciences  and  free  wills,  who  neverthe- 
less, because  of  the  accidents  of  their  lives,  have 
no  rights  at  all;  and  we  acknowledge  the 
righteousness  of  Jeremiah's  denunciation  of  the 
breach  of  covenant  when  the  nobles  of  Judah 
re-enslaved  those  whom  they  had  solemnly 
emancipated.  If  we  think  of  the  nature  of 
responsibility  and   the  justification  of  punish- 


142      Revelation  the  means  of  developing      [Lect. 

merit,  we  find  it  impossible  to  believe  that  an 
innocent  man  shall  be  rightly  punished  for  the 
wrong-doing  of  another,  even  if  that  other  be 
his  father  or  his  mother ;  and  we  are  convinced 
that  Ezekiel  is  speaking  God's  words  when  he 
proclaims  on  God's  behalf  that  '  the  soul  that 
sinneth  it  shall  die ;  the  son  shall  not  bear 
the  iniquity  of  the  father,  neither  shall  the 
father  bear  the  iniquity  of  the  son.'  And  once 
more,  whatever  divine  purpose  gave  the  chosen 
people  a  priority  among  all  peoples  in  know- 
ledge of  divine  will  and  possession  of  divine 
favour,  it  is  impossible  to  find  any  rule  by 
which  this  priority  shall  for  ever  exclude  all 
other  peoples  from  being  within  the  range  of 
God's  manifested  love ;  and  conscience  cannot 
but  accept  as  a  divine  message  that  the  Gen- 
tiles also  shall  come  to  the  Heavenly  'Light, 
and  their  kings  to  the  brightness  of  His  rising.' 
So  again,  to  turn  from  justice  to  mercy,  we 
recognise  that  we  are  bound  to  spare  pain  to 
all  creatures  that  can  feel,  and  this  duty  can 
only  be  set  aside  by  some  higher  duty  which 
makes  that  pain  the  means  to  a  higher  moral 
end.     And  if  we  are  set  by  our  consciences  to 


v.]     and  completing  Spirihial  K7ioivledge,      143 


seek  for  some  rule  of  universal  application  for 
this  purpose,  it  becomes  perpetually  clearer 
that  notliing  can  excuse  cruel  punishments  in- 
flicted on  criminals  or  enemies,  or  hard-hearted 
indifference  to  the  poor  and  the  weak.  Our 
own  nature  cries  out  for  kindness  in  our  pain, 
and  that  very  cry  from  within  compels  our 
consciences  to  listen  to  the  cry  from  without. 
And  the  denunciations  of  cruelty  and  oppression 
we  recognise  as  we  hear  them  to  be  the  voice 
of  God. 

But  however  true  it  be  that  this  progress 
corresponds  exactly  throughout  with  the  neces- 
sary working  of  the  great  moral  principles 
implanted  in  the  spiritual  faculty,  it  never- 
theless remains  true  also  that  all  this  teaching 
in  its  successive  stages  is  given  by  men  who 
did  not  profess  to  be  working  out  a  philo- 
sophical system,  but  who  claimed  to  bring  a 
message  from  God,  to  speak  by  His  authority, 
and  in  many  cases  to  be  trusted  with  special 
powers  in  proof  of  possessing  that  authority. 
Looking  back  over  it  afterwards  we  can  see 
that  the  teaching  in  its  successive  stages  was 
a  development,  but  it  always  took  the  form  of 


1 44      Revelation  the  means  of  developing      [Lect. 

a  revelation.  And  its  life  was  due  to  that 
fact.  As  far  as  it  is  possible  to  judge,  that 
union  between  Morality  and  Religion,  between 
duty  and  faith,  without  which  both  religion  and 
morality  soon  wither  out  of  human  consciences, 
can  only  be  secured — has  only  been  secured — 
by  presenting  spiritual  truth  in  this  form  of  a 
Eevelation. 

When  we  pass  to  the  New  Testament,  all  that 
has  previously  been  taught  in  the  Old,  in  so 
far  as  it  is  related  to  the  new  teaching  at  all, 
is  related  as  the  bud  to  the  flower.  The  de- 
velopment, if  it  be  indeed  a  development,  is  so 
great,  so  sudden,  so  strange,  that  it  seems  diffi- 
cult to  recognise  that  it  is  a  development  at  all. 

First,  the  morality  is  in  form,  if  not  in  sub- 
stance, absolutely  new.  The  duty  of  justice 
and  mercy  is  pushed  at  once  to  its  extreme 
limits,  even  to  the  length  of  entire  self-sur- 
render. The  disciple  has  his  own  rights  no 
doubt,  as  every  other  man  has  his ;  but  he  is 
required  to  leave  his  rights  in  God's  hands  and 
to  think  of  the  rights  of  others  only.  The 
highest  place  is  assigned  to  meekness  in  conduct 
and  humility  in  spirit.      The  humility  of  the 


Y.]     and  completing  Spiritual  Knowledge.      145 

Sermon  on  the  Mount  may  possibly  by  careful 
analysis  be  shown  to  be  identical  at  bottom 
with  the  magnanimity  of  Aristotle's  Ethics. 
But  the  presentation  of  the  two  is  so  utterly 
opposed  that  in  the  effect  on  life  the  identity 
is  altogether  lost.  And  as  justice  and  mercy, 
so  too  self-discipline  is  pushed  as  far  as  it  can 
go.  Instead  of  the  enjoyment  of  life  being  an 
integral  part  of  the  aim  set  before  the  will, 
hunger  and  thirst  for  righteousness,  and  peni- 
tence for  failure  in  keeping  to  it,  are  to  fill 
up  the  believer's  hopes  for  himself.  Of  inward 
satisfaction  and  peace  he  is  often  assured ;  but 
these,  and  these  only,  are  the  means  to  that 
peace.  The  disciples  life  is  to  consist  in  bear- 
ing the  cross,  and  bearing  it  cheerfully ;  in 
returning  good  for  evil,  and  love  for  indifference 
and  even  for  hatred ;  in  detaching  his  affections 
from  all  the  pleasures  to  be  obtained  from  ex- 
ternal things;  in  fixing  his  trust  and  his  love 
on  his  Eternal  Father.  Taken  as  a  whole,  this 
is  quite  unlike  all  moral  teaching  that  preceded 
it,  and  there  is  no  indication  that  any  philo- 
sophy could  ever  have  evolved  it.  It  has 
fastened   on    the    human    conscience   from    the 

L 


146      Revelation  the  means  of  developing      [Lect. 

day  that  it  was  uttered ;  and  whatever  moral 
teaching  since  has  not  been  inspired  from  this 
source  has  soon  passed  out  of  power  and  been 
forgotten.  We  find  when  we  examine  that  it 
exactly  agrees  with  the  fundamental  teaching 
of  the  spiritual  faculty  when  that  teaching  is 
applied  to  such  creatures  as  we  are,  and  to  such 
a  God  as  the  New  Testament  sets  before  us. 
But  we  find  it  impossible  to  assert  that  by  any 
working  of  human  thought  this  morality  could 
have  been  obtained  by  the  spiritual  faculty 
unaided.  On  the  contrary,  it  seems  more  near 
the  truth  to  say  that  we  could  never  have  ob- 
tained so  clear  a  conception  of  the  great  Moral 
Law,  if  the  teaching  of  the  New  Testament 
had  not  enlightened  and  purified  the  spiritual 
faculty  itself.  And  to  this  is  to  be  added  that 
the  moral  teaching  of  the  New  Testament  re- 
cognises what  we  may  now  almost  consider  a 
proved  necessity  of  our  nature,  or  at  least  a 
sure  characteristic  of  the  government  of  the 
world,  that  perpetual  progress  without  which 
nothing  human  seems  to  keep  sweet  and  whole- 
some. Perfect  as  the  New  Testament  morality 
is  in  spirit,  it  is  nevertheless  imperfect  in  actual 


v.]     and  complethig  spiritual  Knowledge,      147 

precepts.  It  leaves  questions  to  be  solved  some 
of  which  have  not  been  solved  yet.  It  left 
slavery  untouched,  though  assuredly  doomed. 
It  said  nothing  of  patriotism.  It  gave  no  clear 
command  concerning  the  right  use  of  wealth. 
It  laid  down  no  principles  for  the  government 
of  states,  though  such  principles  must  have  a 
moral  basis.  There  has  been  a  perpetual 
growth  in  the  vmderstanding  and  in  the  appli- 
cation of  this  perfect  teaching,  and  there  will 
yet  be  a  growth.  Of  no  philosophical  system 
of  morals  is  it  possible  to  say  the  same. 

But  in  the  second  place,  the  New  Testament 
contains  not  only  a  new  morality,  it  contains 
also  a  new  account  of  human  nature.  The 
mystery  of  that  discord  which  makes  the  noblest 
and  best  of  human  souls  a  scene  of  perpetual 
internal  conflict  is  acknowledged  and  its  counter- 
part in  God's  dealings  with  mankind  is  set  forth. 
The  struggle  between  the  spiritual  faculty  as- 
serting its  due  supremacy,  and  the  lower  passions 
and  appetites,  impulses  and  inclinations,  is  so  de- 
scribed by  Saint  Paul  that  none  have  ever  since 
questioned  his  description  with  any  effect.  And 
our  Lord's  teaching  of  our  absolute  dependence 

L  2 


148      Revelation  the  means  of  developing     [Lect. 

on  God  and  helplessness  without  Him ;  and  Saint 
John's  teaching  that  the  whole  world,  outside 
Christ,  '  lieth  in  the  wicked  one/  lay  down 
the  same  truth.  And  as  the  mystery  of  moral 
evil  in  mankind  is  thus  set  forth,  so  too  the 
mystery  of  the  remedy  for  that  evil.  In  the 
love  of  God  shown  in  the  Cross  of  Christ,  in  our 
union  with  God  through  that  same  Death  upon 
the  Cross  is  the  power  which  conquers  evil  in 
the  soul  and  carries  a  man  ever  upward  to 
spiritual  heights.  And  as  all  profounder  thinkers 
have  confessed  the  truth  of  the  account  thus 
given  of  the  internal  contradiction  of  man's 
moral  nature,  so  have  all  believers  borne  witness 
(and  only  they  could  bear  witness)  to  the  account 
thus  given  of  the  solution  of  that  contradiction 
and  the  renovation  of  that  nature.  Millions 
have  lived  and  died  in  the  Christian  faith  since 
the  teaching  recorded  in  the  New  Testament  was 
given,  and  among  them  have  been  the  purest, 
the  justest,  the  most  self-sacrificing,  the  most 
heavenly-minded  of  mankind.  And  they  all 
concur  in  saying  that  the  one  stay  of  all  their 
spiritual  lives  has  been  communion  with  God 
through  Christ. 


v.]     and  completing  Spiritual  Knowledge.      1 49 

Thirdly,  the  New  Testament  affirms  with  a 
clearness  previously  unknown  the  immortality 
of  the  soul  and  the  future  gift  of  that  spiritual 
body  which  shall  in  some  way  spring  from  the 
natural  body  as  the  plant  grows  from  the  seed. 
There  had  grown  up,  no  doubt  quite  naturally, 
anticipations  of  this  doctrine  and  ever  stronger 
and  more  deeply-rooted  persuasion  that  it  must 
be  true.  But  it  is  revealed  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment as  it  is  taught  nowhere  else,  and  it  is 
sealed  by  the  Eesurrection  of  our  Lord,  ever 
since  then  the  historical  centre  of  the  Christian 
Faith.  How  exactly  it  harmonises  with  the 
teaching  of  the  spiritual  faculty  I  have  pointed 
out  before. 

And,  lastly,  the  New  Testament  not  only  tells 
us  what  never  was  told  before  of  man's  nature 
as  a  spiritual  being  and  of  his  destiny  hereafter; 
it  tells  also  what  was  never  told  elsewhere  of  the 
nature  of  God  and  of  the  relations  between  Him 
and  His  creature  man.  The  unity  and  spirit- 
uality of  the  Godhead  so  strenuously  insisted  on 
in  the  Old  Testament,  is  no  less  insisted  on  in 
the  New.  But  the  mysterious  complexity  em- 
braced within  that  unity,  though  darkly  hinted 


150      Revelation  the  means  of  developing"     [Lect. 

at  in  the  older  teachino;,  is  nowhere  clearly  set 
forth  but  in  the  latter.  We  may  find  anticipa- 
tions of  the  teaching  of  St.  Paul  and  St.  John, 
and  of  our  Lord  Himself  as  recorded  by  St.  John, 
in  the  Book  of  Proverbs,  in  the  Prophets,  in  the 
Eabbinical  writers  between  the  Prophets  and 
the  New  Testament,  and  we  can  see  in  Philo  to 
what  this  finally  came  unaided  by  Pevelation. 
But  the  Christian  teaching  on  our  Lord's  nature 
and  on  the  Incarnation  is  distinct  from  all  this. 
And  it  is  in  the  Christian  form,  and  only  in  that 
form,  that  the  doctrine  has  satisfied  the  spiritual 
needs  of  the  great  mass  of  believers. 

Now  there  cannot  be  any  doubt  that  the  hold 
which  this  teaching  has  had  upon  mankind  has 
depended  entirely  on  the  extraordinary  degree 
in  which  the  teaching  of  the  Bible  has  satisfied 
the  conscience.  Without  that  no  miracles  how- 
ever overwhelmingly  attested,  no  external  evi- 
dence of  whatever  kind,  could  have  compelled 
intellects  of  the  highest  rank,  side  by  side  with 
the  most  uncultivated  and  the  most  barren,  to 
accept  it  as  divine,  nor  could  anything  else  have 
so  often  rekindled  its  old  fire  at  times  when 
faith  in  it  had  apparently  withered  away.     The 


v.]     and  completing  Spiritual  Knowledge,      151 

teaching  of  the  Bible  has  always  found  and  must 
always  find  its  main  evidence  within  the  human 
soul. 

And  the  fact  that  the  teaching  of  the  Bible, 
though  when  examined  afterwards  it  turns  out 
to  be  development  or  evolution,  yet  was  always 
given  at  the  time  as  a  revelation,  so  far  from 
diminishing  the  force  of  this  internal  evidence 
adds  to  it  still  more  force  than  it  would  other- 
wise have.  For  what  underlies  the  very  concep- 
tion of  revelation  is  the  doctrine  that  all  progress 
in  higher  spiritual  knowledge  is  bound  up  with 
conscious  communion  with  God.  Now  it  is  an 
experience  common  to  all  believers  that  in  that 
communion  is  to  be  found  not  onlv  all  streno;th 
but  all  enlightenment  also.  The  believer  knows 
that  he  learns  spiritual  truth  in  proportion  as  he 
refers  his  life  to  Gods  judgment,  prays  to  God 
for  clearer  vision  of  what  is  dutv  and  what  is 
right  faith,  and  makes  it  his  one  great  aim  to  do 
God's  will.  He  uses  all  the  faculties  that  God 
has  given  him  to  understand  the  great  divine 
law  ;  but  he  perpetually  looks  to  God  for  in- 
struction, and  whatever  else  may  be  said  of  that 
instruction   his  experience   tells   him   that   his 


152      Revelation  the  means  of  developing      [Lect. 

advance  in  spiritual  knowledge  is  in  proportion 
to  his  nearness  in  thought  and  feeling  to  God 
Himself.  That  the  progress  of  the  human  race 
in  spiritual  knowledge,  unlike  progress  in  scien- 
tific knowledge,  should  be  due  not  to  thinkers 
intellectually  gifted,  but  to  Prophets  and  Apo- 
stles inspired  by  God,  thus  exactly  corresponds 
with  what  the  spiritually-minded  man  finds 
within  his  own  soul.  And  so  too  does  it  corre- 
spond with  what  he  sees  in  others.  Often  and 
often  the  unlearned  and  untrained  by  sheer 
goodness  of  life  attain  to  wonderful  perception 
of  spiritual  truth,  and  the  holiness  of  the  un- 
lettered peasant  reveals  to  his  conscience  the  law 
of  right  conduct  in  circumstances  which  perplex 
the  disciplined  and  well  informed.  As  the 
human  race  has  learnt  the  highest  spiritual 
truth  by  direct  communication  from  God,  so  too 
on  communion  wdth  God  far  more  than  on  intel- 
lectual power,  depends  the  progress  of  spiritual 
knowledge  in  every  human  soul. 

But  though  the  hold  of  the  Bible  on  the  faith 
of  believers  unquestionably  depends  on  its  satis- 
fying the  conscience  in  every  stage  of  its  en- 
lightenment, it  is  equally  certain  that  those  who 


v.]     and  completing  Spiritual  Knowledge.      153 

gave  the  messages  recorded  in  the  Bible  claimed 
something  more  as  proof  of  their  authority  than 
the  approval  of  the  conscience  of  their  hearers. 
They  professed  to  prove  their  mission  by  the 
evidence  of  supernatural  powers  ;  and  the 
teaching  of  the  Bible  cannot  be  dissociated  from 
the  miraculous  element  in  it  which  is  connected 
with  that  teaching.  If,  indeed,  the  Old  Testa- 
ment stood  alone  we  might  acknowledge  that 
the  miraculous  element  in  it  occupied  compara- 
tively so  small  a  place,  and  was  so  separable 
from  the  rest,  and  the  evidence  for  it  was  so 
rarely,  if  ever,  contemporaneous,  that  it  might 
be  left  out  of  count.  But  we  cannot  say  this  of 
the  New  Testament,  nor  in  particular  of  the 
account  that  has  reached  us  of  the  sayings  and 
doings  of  our  Lord.  The  miracles  are  embedded 
in,  are  indeed  intertwined  with,  the  narrative. 
Many  of  our  Lord's  most  characteristic  sayings 
are  so  associated  with  narratives  of  miracles  that 
the  two  cannot  be  torn  apart :  *  I  have  not  seen 
so  great  faith,  no,  not  in  Israel ;  *  '  My  Father 
worketh  hitherto,  and  I  work  ; '  *  Son,  thy  sins 
be  forgiven  thee  ; '  '  Beware  of  the  leaven  of 
the  Pharisees  and  the  Sadducees  ; '   '  It  is  not 


154      Revelation  the  means  of  developing      [Lect. 

meet  to  take  the  children's  bread  and  cast  it 
to  dogs ; '  *  This  kind  goeth  not  out  but  by 
prayer  and  fasting ; '  *  Were  there  not  ten 
cleansed,  but  where  are  the  nine  % '  *  Sin  no  more, 
lest  a  worse  thing  come  unto  thee/  In  fact, 
there  can  be  no  real  doubt  that  our  Lord 
believed  that  He  could  work  miracles,  and  pro- 
fessed to  work  them,  and  that  His  disciples 
believed  that  He  worked  many,  and  included 
that  fact  in  their  meaning  when  they  spoke  of 
Him  as  going  about  doing  good.  And  these 
disciples  professed  to  work  miracles  themselves 
and  believed  that  they  did  work  them.  It  is  of 
course  true  that  they  had  no  strictly  scientific 
conception  of  a  miracle,  and  would  often  have 
called  by  that  name  what  was  in  reality  extra- 
ordinary but  not  miraculous.  And  it  is  true 
too  that,  if  we  take  each  miracle  by  itself,  there 
is  but  one  miracle,  namely  our  Lord's  Eesurrec- 
tion,  for  which  clear  and  unmistakeable  and 
sufficient  evidence  is  given.  But  while  the  ex- 
clusion of  any  one  miracle  as  insufficiently 
attested  is  possible,  the  exclusion  of  the  miracu- 
lous element  altogether  is  not  possible  without 
a  complete  surrender  of  the  position  taken  by 


v.]     ojid  completing  Spiritual  Knowledge,     155 

the  first  Christian  teachers.  As  they  claimed 
to  be  inspired  and  to  have  enlightenment  which 
was  not  shared  by  mankind  at  large,  so  did  they 
claim,  if  not  each  for  himself,  yet  certainly  for 
our  Lord,  power  not  shared  by  ordinary  men, 
powder  to  step  out  of  the  ordinary  course  of 
natural  events,  and,  whether  by  virtue  of  some 
higher  law  operative  only  in  rare  instances,  or 
by  direct  interference  of  the  Almighty,  to  prove 
a  divine  mission  by  exhibiting  in  fact  what  is 
an  essential  part  of  the  supremacy  of  the  Moral 
Law,  the  dominion  of  that  Law  over  the  physical 
world. 

The  teachers  of  other  religions  besides  the 
Christian  have  claimed  supernatural  powers,  and 
have  professed  to  give  a  supernatural  message. 
This  is  a  strong  evidence  of  the  deep-seated  need 
in  the  human  soul  for  such  a  direct  communica- 
tion from  God  to  man.  Men  seem  to  need  it  so 
much  that  without  it  they  are  unable  to  accept 
the  truth,  or  to  hold  it  long  if  they  do  accept  it. 
All  who  thus  claim  supernatural  authority  must, 
of  course,  justify  their  claim.  They  must  justify 
their  message  to  the  human  conscience.  What 
they  teach  must  be  an  advance  towards,  and 


156      Revelation  the  means  of  developing      [Lect. 

finally  an  expression  of,  the  Supreme  Moral 
Law.  And  if  they  profess  to  have  miraculous 
power  they  must  give  reasonable  evidence  that 
such  power  is  really  theirs.  But  if  they  fail 
in  this,  still  the  fact  remains  that  their  very  claim 
must  answer  to  something  in  the  spiritual  na- 
ture of  man,  or  it  would  not  be  so  invariably 
made  nor  so  largely  successful. 

It  seems  as  if,  whatever  may  be  the  ground 
of  belief  when  once  revelation  has  penetrated 
into  the  soul,  the  exercise  of  supernatural  power 
was  needed  to  procure  that  access  in  the  first 
instance.  We  believe  because  we  find  our  con- 
sciences satisfied,  and  we  bring  up  our  children 
in  such  discipline  of  conscience  that  they  too 
shall  have  sufficient  training  to  recognise  and 
hold  fast  divine  truth.  And  if  we  had  lived 
at  the  time  and  could  have  had  our  eyes  opened 
to  see  the  spiritual  power  of  the  Christian  Faith, 
we  might  have  believed  without  any  external 
evidence  at  all.  But  the  first  receivers  of  the 
message,  to  whom  the  revelation  was  new,  and, 
as  must  have  often  happened  and  we  actually 
know  did  happen,  to  whom  it  was  hard  to  re- 
concile that  revelation  with  previous  teaching, 


v.]     and  completing  spiritual  Knowledge.      157 

how  sure  were  they  to  need  some  other  and 
outer  evidence  that  it  really  came  from  God. 
The  supernatural  in  the  form  of  miracles  can 
never  be  the  highest  kind  of  evidence,  can  never 
stand  alone  as  evidence ;  but  it  seems  to  have 
been  needed  for  the  first  reception.  And  there 
seem  to  be  minds  that  need  it  still,  and  to  all 
it  is  a  help  to  find  that  reasonable  ground  can 
be  shown  for  holding  that  such  evidence  was 
originally  given. 

Eevelation,  in  short,  takes  a  higher  stand  than 
belongs  to  all  other  teaching,  and  except  for  its 
having  taken  that  higher  stand  it  does  not 
appear  that  the  highest  teaching  would  have 
been  possible.  To  look  back  afterwards  and  say 
that  we  find  a  development  or  an  evolution  is 
easy.  And  at  first  sight  it  seems  to  follow  that, 
being  an  evolution,  it  may  well  be  no  more  than 
the  outcome  of  the  working  of  the  natural  forces. 
But  look  closer  and  you  see  the  undeniable  fact 
that  all  these  developments  by  the  working  of 
natural  forces  have  perished.  Not  Socrates,  nor 
Plato,  nor  Aristotle,  nor  the  Stoics,  nor  Philo 
have  been  able  to  lay  hold  of  mankind,  nor  have 
their  moral  systems  in  any  large  degree  satisfied 


58     Revelation  the  means  of  developing,  &c. 


our  spiritual  faculty.  Eevelation,  and  revela- 
tion alone,  lias  taught  us;  and  it  is  from  the 
teaching  of  revelation  that  men  have  obtained 
the  very  knowledge  which  some  now  use  to 
show  that  there  was  no  need  of  revelation. 
That  altruism  which  is  now  to  displace  the 
command  of  God  is  nothing  but  the  teaching 
of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  robbed  of  its 
heavenly  power,  robbed  of  the  great  doctrine 
which  underlies  the  whole  sermon.  For  that 
doctrine  is  the  Fatherhood  of  God  which  has 
been  shown  most  especially  in  this,  that  from 
the  beginning  He  has  never  forgotten  His 
children. 


LECTURE    VI. 

APPARENT  COLLISION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND 
THE  DOCTRINE  OF  EVOLUTION. 


Evolution  examined.  The  formation  of  the  habitable 
world.  The  formation  of  the  creatures  which  inhabit  it. 
Transmission  of  characteristics.  Variations  perpetually  in- 
troduced. Natural  selection.  On  the  other  side,  life  not 
yet  accounted  for  by  Evolution.  Cause  of  variations  not 
yet  examined.  Moral  Law  incapable  of  being  evolved. 
Account  given  in  Genesis  not  at  variance  with  doctrine 
of  Evolution.  Evolution  of  man  not  inconsistent  with 
dignity  of  humanity. 


LECTURE   VI. 

APPARENT  COLLISION  BETWEEN  RELIGION  AND 
THE  DOCTRINE  OF  EVOLUTION. 

'  Know  ye  that  the  Lord  He  is  God :   it  is  He  that  hath 
made  us,  and  not  we  ourselves/     Psalm  c.  3. 

"D  ELIGION  is  rooted  in  our  spiritual  nature 
and  its  fundamental  truths  are  as  inde- 
pendent of  experience  for  their  hold  on  our 
consciences  as  the  truths  of  mathematics  for 
their  hold  on  our  reason. 

But  as  a  matter  of  fact  Reliofion  has  taken 
the  form  of  a  revelation.  And  this  introduces 
a  new  contact  between  Eeligion  and  Science,  and 
of  necessity  a  new  possibility  of  collision.  There 
is  not  only  possible  opposition  or  apparent  oppo- 
sition of  Science  in  what  is  revealed,  in  what  we 
may  call  the  actual  substance  of  the  revelation ; 
but  also  in  the  accessories  and  evidences  of  the 
revelation,  which  may  be  no  actual  part  of  the 

M 


i62    Apparent  Collision  between  Religion    [Lect. 

revelation  itself,  but  nevertheless  are,  to  all  ap- 
pearance, inseparably  bound  up  with  it.  It  is 
therefore  no  more  than  might  have  been  ex- 
pected that  the  general  postulate  of  the  uni- 
formity of  nature  should  appear  to  be  contravened 
by  the  claim  to  supernatural  power  made  on 
behalf  of  revelation,  and  that  the  special,  but  just 
at  present  leading  scientific  doctrine,  the  doctrine 
of  Evolution,  should  be  found  inconsistent  with 
parts,  or  what  appear  to  be  parts,  of  the  reve- 
lation itself.  And  we  have  to  consider  the  two 
questions,  What  has  Kevelation  to  say  concern- 
ing Evolution?  and  what  has  Science  to  say 
concerning  Miracles  \ 

Concerning  Evolution,  we  have  first  to  con- 
sider how  much  in  this  direction  has  been  made 
fairly  probable,  and  what  still  remains  to  be 
determined. 

It  cannot  then  be  well  denied  that  the  astro- 
nomers and  geologists  have  made  it  exceedingly 
probable  that  this  earth  on  which  we  live  has 
been  brought  to  its  present  condition  by  passing 
through  a  succession  of  changes  from  an  ori- 
ginal state  of  great  heat  and  fluidity,  perhaps 
even  from  a  mixture  mainly  consisting  of  gases  ; 


VI.]  and  the  Doctrine  of  Evolution.  i6, 


that  such  a  body  as  the  planet  Jupiter  repre- 
sents one  of  the  stages  through  which  it  has 
passed,  that  such  a  body  as  the  moon  re- 
presents a  stage  toward  which  it  is  tending  ; 
that  it  has  shrunk  as  it  cooled,  and  as  it  shrank 
has  formed  the  elevations  which  we  call  moun- 
tains, and  the  depressions  which  contain  the  seas 
and  oceans  ;  that  it  has  been  worn  by  the  action 
of  heat  from  within  and  water  from  without,  and 
in  consequence  of  this  action  presents  the  appear- 
ance when  examined  below  the  surface  of  suc- 
cessive strata  or  layers ;  that  different  kinds  of 
animal  and  vegetable  life  have  followed  one 
another  on  the  surface,  and  that  some  of  their 
remains  are  found  in  these  strata  now ;  and  that 
all  this  has  taken  enormous  periods  of  time. 
All  this  is  exceedingly  probable,  because  it  is 
the  way  in  which,  as  Laplace  first  pointed  out, 
under  well-established  scientific  laws  of  matter, 
particularly  the  law  of  gravitation  and  the  law  of 
the  radiation  of  heat,  a  great  fluid  mass  would 
necessarily  change.  And  the  whole  solar  system 
may  and  probably  did  come  into  its  present  con- 
dition in  this  way.  It  certainly  could  have 
been   so   formed,   and   there    is   no  reason    for 

M  2 


164    Appa7'ent  Collision  between  Religion    [Lect. 

supposing  that  it  was  formed  in  any  other 
way. 

Once  more,  if  we  begin,  as  it  were,  at  the 
other  end,  and  trace  things  backwards  from  the 
present,  instead  of  forwards  from  the  remote 
past,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  Darwin's  in- 
vestigations have  made  it  exceedingly  probable 
that  the  vast  variety  of  plants  and  animals 
have  sprung  from  a  much  smaller  number  of 
oriofinal  forms. 

In  the  first  place,  the  unity  of  plan  which  can 
be  found  pervading  any  great  class  of  animals 
or  plants  seems  to  point  to  unity  of  ancestry. 
Why,  for  instance,  should  the  vertebrate  ani- 
mals be  formed  on  a  common  plan,  the  parts 
of  the  framework  being  varied  from  species  to 
species,  but  the  framework  as  a  whole  always 
exhibiting  the  same  fundamental  type  %  If  they 
all  descended  from  a  common  ancestor,  and  the 
variations  were  introduced  in  the  course  of  that 
descent,  this  remarkable  fact  is  at  once  accounted 
for.  But,  in  the  second  place,  observation  shows 
that  slight  variations  are  perpetually  being  in- 
troduced with  every  successive  generation,  and 
many  of  these  variations  are  transmitted  to  the 


vl]  and  the  Doctrine  of  Evolution.  165 

generations  that  follow.  In  the  course  of  time, 
therefore,  from  any  one  parent  stock  would 
descend  a  very  large  variety  of  kinds.  But  if, 
in  the  third  place,  it  be  asked  why  this  variety 
does  not  range  by  imperceptible  degrees  from 
extreme  forms  in  one  direction  to  extreme  forms 
in  the  other,  the  answer  is  to  be  found  in  the 
enormous  prodigality  and  the  equally  enormous 
waste  of  life  and  living  creatures.  Plants  and 
animals  produce  far  more  descendants  than  ever 
come  even  to  such  maturity  as  to  reproduce  their 
kind.  And  this  is  particularly  the  case  with  the 
lower  forms  of  life.  Eggs  and  seeds  and  germs 
are  destroyed  by  millions,  and  so  in  a  less  but 
still  enormous  proportion  are  the  young  that 
come  from  those  that  have  not  been  destroyed. 
There  is  no  waste  like  the  waste  of  life  that 
is  to  be  seen  in  nature.  Living  creatures  are 
destroyed  by  lack  of  fit  nourishment,  by  lack 
of  means  of  reproduction,  by  accidents,  by  ene- 
mies. The  inevitable  operation  of  this  waste, 
as  Darwin's  investigation  showed,  has  been  to 
destroy  all  those  varieties  which  were  not  well 
fitted  to  their  surroundings,  and  to  keep  those 
that  were.     One  species  of  animal  has  been  pre- 


66    Appare7it  Collision  between  Religion    [Lect. 


served  by  length  of  neck,  which  enabled  it  to 
reach  high-growing  fruits  and  leaves ;  another 
by  a  thicker  skin,  which  made  it  difficult  for 
enemies  to  devour ;  another  by  a  colour  which 
made  it  easier  to  hide.  One  plant  has  been  pre- 
served by  a  bright  flower  which  attracted  insects 
to  carry  its  pollen  to  other  flowers  of  its  kind ; 
another  by  a  sweet  fruit  which  attracted  birds  to 
scatter  its  seed.  Meanwhile  other  animals  and 
plants  that  had  not  these  advantages  perished  for 
the  lack  of  them.  The  result  would  be  to  main- 
tain, and  perpetually,  though  with  exceeding- 
slowness,  more  and  more  to  adapt  to  the  con- 
ditions of  their  life,  those  species  whose  pecu- 
liarities gave  them  some  advantage  in  the  great 
struggle  for  existence. 

Here  again  we  have  the  working  of  known 
laws  of  life,  capable  of  accounting  for  what  we 
see.  And  the  high  probability  cannot  be  denied 
that  by  evolution  of  this  kind  the  present  races 
of  livins:  creatures  have  been  formed.  And  to 
these  arguments  the  strongest  corroboration 
is  given  by  the  frequent  occurrence,  both  in 
plants  and  animals,  of  useless  parts  which  still 
remain  as  indications  of  organs  that  once  were 


yi.]  and  the  Doctrine  of  Evohction.  167 

useful  and  have  long  become  useless.  Animals 
that  now  live  permanently  in  the  dark  have 
abortive  eyes  v^hich  cannot  see,  but  indicate  an 
ancestor  with  eyes  that  could  see.  Animals  that 
never  walk  have  abortive  legs  hidden  under  their 
skin,  useless  now  but  indicating  what  was  useful 
once.  Our  knowledge  no  doubt  in  this  as  in 
any  other  province  of  nature  is  but  the  merest 
fraction  of  what  may  be  known  therein.  But 
there  is  no  evidence  whatever  to  show  that  what 
we  have  observed  is  not  a  fair  sample  of  the 
whole.  And  so  taking  it,  we  find  that  the  mass 
of  evidence  in  favour  of  the  evolution  of  plants 
and  animals  is  enormously  great  and  increasing 
daily. 

Granting  then  the  high  probability  of  the  two 
theories  of  Evolution,  that  which  begins  with 
Laplace  and  explains  the  way  in  which  the 
earth  was  fitted  to  be  the  habitation  of  living 
creatures,  and  that  which  owes  its  name  to  Dar- 
win and  gives  an  account  of  the  formation  of  the 
living  creatures  now  existing,  we  have  to  see 
what  limitations  and  modifications  are  neces- 
sarily attached  to  our  complete  acceptance  of 
both. 


i68    Apparent  Collisio7i  between  Religion    [Lect. 

First,  then,  at  the  very  meeting  point  of  these 
two  evolutions  we  have  the  important  fact  that 
all  the  evidence  that  we  possess  up  to  the  pre- 
sent day  negatives  the  opinion  that  life  is  a 
mere  evolution  from  inorganic  matter.  We 
know  perfectly  well  the  constituents  of  all  living 
substances.  We  know  that  the  fundamental 
material  of  all  plants  and  all  animals  is  a  com- 
pound called  protoplasm,  or  that,  in  other  words, 
organic  matter  in  all  its  immense  variety  of 
forms  is  nothing  but  protoplasm  variously  modi- 
fied. And  we  know  the  constituent  elements  of 
this  protoplasm,  and  their  proportions,  and  the 
temperatures  within  which  protoplasm  as  such 
can  exist.  But  we  are  quite  powerless  to  make 
it,  or  to  show  how  it  is  made,  or  to  detect  nature 
in  the  act  of  making  it.  All  the  evidence  we 
have  points  to  one  conclusion  only,  that  life 
is  the  result  of  antecedent  life,  and  is  pro- 
ducible on  no  other  conditions.  Eepeatedly 
have  scientific  observers  believed  that  they 
have  come  on  instances  of  spontaneous  gene- 
ration, but  further  examination  has  invariably 
shown  that  they  have  been  mistaken.  We  can 
put   the  necessary  elements  together,   but  we 


VI.]  and  the  Doctrine  of  Evolution,  169 

cannot  supply  the  necessary  bond  by  which  they 
are  to  be  made  to  live.  Nay,  we  cannot  even 
recall  that  bond  when  it  has  once  been  dissolved. 
We  can  take  living  protoplasm  and  we  can  kill 
it.  It  will  be  protoplasm  still,  so  far  as  our 
best  chemistry  can  discover,  but  it  wiU  be  dead 
protoplasm,  and  we  cannot  make  it  live  again ; 
and  as  far  as  we  know  nature  can  no  more  make 
it  live  than  we  can.  It  can  be  used  as  food  for 
living  creatures,  animals  or  plants,  and  so  its 
substance  can  be  taken  up  by  living  protoplasm 
and  made  to  share  in  the  life  which  thus  con- 
sumes it ;  but  life  of  its  own  it  cannot  obtain. 
Now  here,  as  it  seems,  the  acceptance  of  the  two 
evolutions  lands  us  in  acceptance  of  a  miracle. 
The  creation  of  life  is  unaccounted  for.  And  it 
much  more  exactly  answers  to  what  we  mean  by 
a  miracle  than  it  did  under  the  old  theory  of 
creation  before  Evolution  was  made  a  scientific 
doctrine.  For  under  that  old  theory  the  creation 
of  living  creatures  stood  on  the  same  footing  as 
the  creation  of  metals  or  other  inorganic  sub- 
stances. It  was  part  of  that  beginning  which 
had  to  be  taken  for  granted,  and  which  for  that 
reason  lay  outside  of  the  domain  of  Science  alto- 


1 70    Apparent  Collision  between  Religion    [Lect. 

getlier.  But  if  we  accept  the  two  evolutions, 
the  creation  of  life,  if  unaccounted  for,  presents 
itself  as  a  direct  interference  in  the  actual  history 
of  the  world.  There  could  have  been  no  life  when 
the  earth  was  nothing  but  a  mass  of  intensely 
heated  fluid.  There  came  a  time  when  the  earth 
became  ready  for  life  to  exist  upon  it.  And  the 
life  came,  and  no  laws  of  inorganic  matter  can 
account  for  its  coming.  As  it  stands  this  is 
a  great  miracle.  And  from  this  conclusion  the 
only  escape  that  has  been  suggested  is  to  sup- 
pose that  life  came  in  on  a  meteoric  stone  from 
some  already  formed  habitable  world ;  a  sup- 
position which  transfers  the  miracle  to  another 
scene,  but  leaves  it  as  great  a  miracle  as  before. 
Nor,  if  it  was  a  miracle,  can  we  deny  that  there 
was  a  purpose  in  it  worthy  of  miraculous  inter- 
ference. For  what  purpose  can  rank  side  by 
side  with  the  existence  and  development  of  life, 
the  primary  condition  of  all  moral  and  spiritual 
existence  and  action  in  this  worlds  In  the  intro- 
duction of  life  was  wrapped  up  all  that  we  value 
and  all  that  we  venerate  in  the  whole  creation. 
The  infinite  superiority,  not  in  degree  only,  but 
in  kind,  of  the  living  to  the  lifeless,  of  a  man  to 


Yi.]  and  the  Doctrine  of  Evolution.  1 7 1 


a  stone,  justifies  us  in  believing  that  the  main 
purpose  of   the    creation  that  we    see   was  to 
supply  a  dwelling-place  and  a  scene  of  action  for 
livino-  beings.     We  cannot  say  that  the  dignity 
of  the  Moral  Law  requires  that  creatures  to  be 
made  partakers  in  the  knowledge  of  it,  and  even 
creatures  of  a  lower  nature  but  akin  to  them, 
must  have  been  the  results  of  a  separate  and 
miraculous  act  of  creation.    But  we  can  say  that 
there  is  a  congruity  in  such  a  miracle,  with  the 
moral  purpose  of  all  the  world,  of  which  we  are 
a  part,  that  removes  all  difficulty  in  believing 
it.    Science,  as  such,  cannot  admit  a  miracle,  and 
can  only  say,  '  Here  is  a  puzzle  yet  unsolved/ 
Nor  can  the  most  religious  scientific  man  be 
blamed  as  undutiful  to  religion  if  he  persists  in 
endeavouring  to  solve  the  puzzle.     But  he  has 
no  right  to  insist  beforehand  that  the  puzzle  is 
certainly  soluble  ;  for  that  he  cannot  know,  and 
the  evidence  is  against  him. 

Secondly,  if  we  look  at  the  Darwinian  theory 
by  itself,  we  see  at  once  that  it  is  incomplete, 
and  the  consideration  of  this  incompleteness 
gravely  modifies  the  conclusion  which  would 
otherwise  be  rightly  drawn  from  it,  and  which, 


172    Apparent  Collision  between  Religion    [Lect. 

indeed,  Darwin  himself  seems  disposed  to  draw. 
For  the  theory  rests  on  two  main  pillars,  the 
transmission  of  characteristics  from  progenitor 
to  progeny,  and  the  introduction  of  minute  varia- 
tions in  the  progeny  with  each  successive  gene- 
ration. Now,  the  former  of  these  may  be  said 
to  be  well  established,  and  we  recognise  it  a.s  a 
law  of  life  that  all  plants  and  animals  propagate 
their  own  kind.  But  the  latter  has,  as  yet,  been 
hardly  examined  at  alL  Each  new  generation 
shows  special  slight  variations.  But  what 
causes  these  variations  ?  and  what  determines 
what  they  shall  be  ?  In  Darwin's  investigations 
these  questions  are  not  touched.  The  variations 
are  treated  as  if  they  were  quite  indefinite  in 
number  and  in  nature.  He  concerns  himself 
only  with  the  effect  of  these  variations  after  they 
have  appeared.  Some  have  the  effect  of  giving 
the  plant  or  animal  an  advantage  in  the  struggle 
of  life ;  some  give  no  such  advantage ;  some  are 
hurtful.  And  hence  follow^s  the  permanent  pre- 
servation or  speedy  destruction  of  the  plants  and 
animals  themselves.  But  we  are  bound  to  look 
not  only  to  their  effects  but  to  their  causes,  if 
the  theory  is  to  be  completed.     And  then  w^e 


Yl.]         and  the  Doctrine  of  Evolution.  173 

cannot  fail  to  see  that  these  variations  in  the 
progeny  cannot  be  due  to  something  in  the  pro- 
genitors, or  otherwise  the  variations  would  be 
all  alike,  which  they  certainly  are  not.  They 
must,  therefore,  be  due  to  external  circumstances. 
These  slight  variations  are  produced  by  the 
action  of  the  surroundings,  by  the  food,  by  the 
temperature,  by  the  various  accidents  of  Hfe  in 
the  progenitors.  Now,  when  we  see  this,  we 
see  also  how  gravely  it  modifies  the  conclusions 
which  we  have  to  draw  concerning  the  ancestry 
of  any  species  now  existing.  Let  us  take,  for 
instance,  the  great  order  of  vertebrate  animals. 
At  first  sight  the  Darwinian  theory  seems  to 
indicate  that  all  these  animals  are  descended 
from  one  pair  or  one  individual,  and  that  their 
unity  of  construction  is  due  to  that  fact ;  but  if 
we  go  back  in  thought  to  the  time  at  which  the 
special  peculiarities  were  introduced  which  really 
constituted  the  order  and  separated  it  from 
other  animals,  we  see  that  it  is  by  no  means 
clear  that  it  originated  with  one  pair  or  with 
one  individual,  and  that,  on  the  contrary,  the 
probabilities  are  the  other  way.  Although  the 
separation  of  this  order  from  the  rest  must  have 


1 74    Apparent  Collision  between  Religion   [Lect. 

taken  place  very  early,  it  cannot  well  have 
taken  place  until  millions  of  animals  had  al- 
ready come  into  existence.  The  prodigality  of 
nature  in  multiplying  animal  life  is  fully  ac- 
knowledged by  Darwin,  and  that  prodigality  is 
apparently  greatest  in  the  lowest  and  most 
formless  type  of  animal.  There  being,  then, 
these  many  millions  of  living  creatures  in  exist- 
ence, the  external  surroundings  introduce  into 
them  many  variations,  and  among  these  the 
special  variations  to  which  the  vertebrate  type 
is  due.  It  is  quite  clear  that  wherever  the 
external  surroundings  w^ere  the  same  or  nearly 
the  same,  the  variations  introduced  would  be 
the  same  or  nearly  the  same.  Now,  it  is  far 
more  probable  that  external  surroundings  should 
be  the  same  or  nearly  the  same  in  many  places 
than  that  each  spot  should  be  absolutely  unlike 
every  other  spot  in  these  particulars.  The  be- 
ginnings of  the  vertebrate  order  would  show 
themselves  simultaneously,  or  at  any  rate  inde- 
pendently, in  many  places  wherever  external 
conditions  were  sufficiently  similar.  And  the 
unity  of  the  plan  in  the  vertebrata  would  be 
due,  not  to  absolute  unity  of  ancestry,  but  to 


VI.]  and  the  Doctrine  of  Evohttioii,  175 

unity  of  external  conditions  at  a  particular 
epoch  in  the  descent  of  life.  Hence  it  follows 
that  the  separation  of  animals  into  orders  and 
genera  and  even  into  species  took  place,  if  not 
for  the  most  part  yet  very  largely,  at  a  very 
early  period  in  the  history  of  organic  evolution. 
Of  course  the  descendants  of  any  one  of  the 
original  vertebrata  might,  and  probably  in  not  a 
few  cases  did,  branch  off  into  new  subdivisions 
and  yet  again  into  further  subdivisions,  and  we 
are  always  justified  in  looking  for  unity  of 
ancestry  among  all  the  species.  But  it  is  also 
quite  possible  that  any  species  may  be  regularly 
descended,  without  branching  off  at  all,  from  one 
of  the  originals,  and  that  other  species  that  re- 
semble it  may  owe  the  resemblance  simply  to 
very  great  similarity  of  external  conditions.  To 
find,  for  instance,  the  unity  of  ancestry  between 
man  and  the  other  animals,  it  will  certainly  be 
necessary  to  go  back  to  a  point  in  the  history  of 
life  when  living  creatures  were  as  yet  formless, 
undeveloped  —  the  materials,  as  we  may  call 
them,  of  the  animal  creation  as  we  now  see  it, 
and  not  in  any  but  a  strictly  scientific  sense, 
what    we    mean  when  we    ordinarily  speak  of 


76    Apparent  Collision  between  Religion   [Lect. 


animals.  The  true  settlement  of  such  questions 
as  these  can  only  be  obtained  when  long  and 
patient  study  shall  have  completed  Darwin's 
investigations  by  determining  under  what  laws 
and  within  what  limits  the  slight  variations 
which  characterise  each  individual  animal  or 
plant  are  congenitally  introduced  into  its  struc- 
ture. As  things  stand  the  probabilities  certainly 
are  that  a  creature  with  such  especial  character- 
istics as  man  has  had  a  history  altogether  of  his 
own,  if  not  from  the  beginning  of  all  life  upon 
the  globe,  yet  from  a  very  early  period  in  the 
development  of  that  life.  He  resembles  certain 
other  animals  very  closely  in  the  structure  of 
his  body ;  but  the  part  which  external  conditions 
had  to  play  in  the  earliest  stages  of  evolution  of 
life  must  have  been  so  exceedingly  large  that 
identity  or  close  similarity  in  these  external  con- 
ditions may  well  account  for  these  resemblances. 
And  the  enormous  gap  which  separates  his 
nature  from  that  of  all  other  creatures  known, 
indicates  an  exceedingly  early  difference  of 
origin. 

Lastly,  it  is  quite  impossible  to  evolve  the 
Moral  Law  out  of  anything  but  itself.    Attempts 


VI.]         and  the  Doctrine  of  Evolution,  177 

have  been  made,  and  many  more  will  no  doubt 
be  made,  to  trace  the  origin  of  the  spiritual 
faculty  to  a  development  of  the  other  faculties. 
And  it  is  to  be  expected  that  great  success  will 
ultimately  attend  the  endeavours  to  show  the 
growth  of  all  the  subordinate  powers  of  the  soul. 
That  our  emotions,  that  our  impulses,  that  our 
affections  should  have  had  a  history,  and  that 
their  present  working  should  be  the  result  of 
that  history,  has  nothing  in  it  improbable.  There 
can  be  no  question  that  we  inherit  these  things 
very  largely,  and  that  they  are  also  very  largely 
due  to  special  peculiarities  of  constitution  in 
each  individual.  That  large  part  of  us  which  is 
rightly  assigned  to  our  nature  as  distinct  from 
our  own  will  and  our  own  free  action,  it  is  per- 
fectly reasonable  to  find  subject  to  laws  of 
Evolution.  Much  of  this  nature,  indeed,  we 
share  with  the  lower  animals.  They,  too,  can 
love  ;  can  be  angry  or  pleased;  can  put  affection 
above  appetite;  can  show  generosity  and  nobility 
of  spirit;  can  be  patient,  persevering,  tender, 
self-sacrificing  ;  can  take  delight  in  society :  and 
some  can  even  organise  it,  and  thus  enter  on  a  kind 
of  civilisation.     The  dog  and  the  horse,  man's 

N 


lyS    Apparent  Collision  between  Religion    [Lect. 

faithful  servants  and  companions,  show  emotions 
and  affections  rising  as  far  as  mere  emotions  and 
affections  can  rise  to  the  human  level.      Ants 
show  an  advance  in  the  arts  of  life  well  com- 
parable to  our  own.     If  the  bare  animal  nature 
is  thus  capable  of  such  high  attainments  by  the 
mere  working  of  natural  forces,  it  is  to  be  ex- 
pected that  similar  forces  in  mankind  should  be 
found  to  work  under  similar  laws.     We  are  not 
spiritual  beings  only,  we  are  animals,  and  what- 
ever nature  has  done  for  other  animals  we  may 
expect  it  to  have  done  and  to  be  doing  for  us. 
And  if  their  nature  is  capable  of  evolution,  so 
too   should   ours   be.     And   the   study  of  such 
evolution  of  our  own  nature  is  likely  to  be  of 
the  greatest  value.     This  nature  is  the  main  in- 
strument, put  into  the  grasp  as  it  were  of  that 
spiritual  faculty  which  is  our  inmost  essence,  to 
be  used  in  making  our  whole  life  an  offering  to 
God.      It  is  good  to  know  what  can  be  done 
with  this  instrument  and  what  cannot ;  how  it 
has  been  formed  in  the  past,  and  may  be  still 
further  formed  for  the  future.      It  is  good  to 
study  the  evolution  of  humanity.     But  all  this 
does  not  touch  the  spiritual  fciculty  itself,  nor 


VI.]  and  the  DocU'hie  of  Evolution.  179 

the  Moral  Law  which  that  faculty  proclaims  to 
us.  The  essence  of  that  law  is  its  universality; 
and  out  of  all  this  development,  when  carried  to 
its  very  perfection,  the  conception  of  such  uni- 
versality cannot  be  obtained.  Nothing  in  this 
evolution  ever  rises  to  the  height  of  a  law  which 
shall  bind  even  God  Himself,  and  enable  Abra- 
ham to  say,  *  Shall  not  the  Judge  of  all  the 
earth  do  right  \ '  The  very  word  right  in  this, 
its  fulness  of  meaning,  cannot  be  used. 

Evolution  may  lead  the  creature  to  say  what 
is  hateful  and  what  is  loveable,  what  is  painful 
and  what  is  delightful,  what  is  to  be  feared 
and  what  is  to  be  sought ;  it  may  develope 
the  sentiment  which  comes  nearest  of  all  to 
the  sentiment  of  reverence,  namely,  the  sen- 
timent of  shame ;  but  it  cannot  reveal  the 
eternal  character  of  the  distinction  between 
right  and  wrong.  Nay,  there  may  be,  as  was 
pointed  out  in  the  last  Lecture,  an  evolution 
in  our  knowledge  even  of  the  Moral  Law,  just 
as  there  is  an  evolution  in  our  knowledge  of 
mathematics.  The  fulness  of  its  meaning  can 
become  clearer  and  ever  clearer  as  generation 
learns  from   generation.      But  the  principle  of 

N   2 


i8o    Apparent  Collision  between  Religion   [Lect. 


the  Moral  Law,  its  universality,  its  supremacy, 
cannot  come  out  of  any  development  of  human 
nature  any  more  than  the  necessity  of  mathe- 
matical truth  can  so  come.  It  stands  not  on 
experience,  and  is  its  own  evidence.  Nor  in- 
deed have  any  of  the  attempts  to  show  that 
everything  in  man  (religion  included)  is  the 
product  of  Evolution  ever  touched  the  question 
how  this  conception  of  universal  supremacy 
comes  in.  It  is  treated  as  if  it  were  an  un- 
authorised extension  from  our  own  experience 
to  what  lies  beyond  all  experience.  This, 
however,  is  to  deny  the  essence  of  the  Moral 
Law  altogether:  that  Law  is  universal  or  it 
is  nothing. 

Now,  when  we  compare  the  account  of  the 
creation  and  of  man  given  by  the  doctrine  of 
Evolution  with  that  given  in  the  Bible,  we 
see  at  once  that  the  two  are  in  different 
regions.  The  purpose  of  giving  the  accounts 
is  different ;  the  spirit  and  character  of  the 
accounts  is  different ;  the  details  are  altogether 
different.  The  comparison  must  take  note  of 
the  difference  of  spirit  and  aim  before  it  can 
proceed  at  aU. 


VI.]  and  the  Doctrine  of  EvoliUion.  1 8 1 


It  is  then  quite  certain,  and  even  those  who 
contend   for   the   literal  interpretation  of  this 
part  of  the  Bible   will   generally   admit,  that 
the  purpose  of  the  revelation  is  not  to  teach 
Science  at  all.      It  is  to  teach  great  spiritual 
and  moral   lessons,  and   it   takes   the   facts  of 
nature    as    they   appear    to    ordinary    people. 
When  the  creation  of  man  is  mentioned  there 
is  clearly  no  intention  to  say  by  what  processes 
this  creation  was  effected,  or  how  much  time 
it  took    to    work    out  those   processes.      The 
narrative  is  not  touched  by  the  question.  Was 
this  a  single  act  done  in  a  moment,  or  a  pro- 
cess lasting  through  milhons  of  years  1      The 
writer  of  the  Book  of  Genesis   sees  the  earth 
peopled,  as  we  may  say,  by  many  varieties  of 
plants  and  animals.     He  asserts  that  God  made 
them  all,  and  made  them  resemble  each  other 
and  differ  from  each  other.     He  knows  nothing 
and  says  nothing  of  the  means  used  to  produce 
their   resemblances    or    their   differences.       He 
takes   them    as   he    sees   them,   and   speaks   of 
their  creation  as  God's  work.      Had  he  been 
commissioned  to  teach   his  people  the  science 
of  the  matter,  he  would   have   had  to  put  a 


1 82    Apparent  Collision  between  Religion    [Lect. 

most  serious  obstacle  in  the  way  of  their  faith. 
They  would  have  found  it  almost  impossible 
to  believe  in  a  process  of  creation  so  utterly 
unlike  all  their  own  experience.  And  it  would 
have  been  quite  useless  to  them  besides,  since 
their  science  was  not  in  such  a  condition  as  to 
enable  them  to  coordinate  this  doctrine  w^ith 
any  other.  As  science  it  would  have  been 
dead ;  and  as  spiritual  truth  it  would  have 
been  a  hindrance. 

But  he  had,  nevertheless,  great  ideas  to  com- 
municate, and  we  can  read  them  still. 

He  had  to  teach  that  the  world  as  we  see 
it,  and  all  therein  contained,  was  created  out 
of  nothing ;  and  that  the  spiritual,  and  not 
the  material,  was  the  source  of  all  existence. 
He  had  to  teach  that  the  creation  was  not 
merely  orderly,  but  progressive ;  going  from 
the  formless  to  the  formed ;  from  the  orderless 
to  the  ordered;  from  the  inanimate  to  the 
animate  ;  from  the  plant  to  the  animal ;  from 
the  lower  animal  to  the  higher ;  from  the 
beast  to  the  man ;  ending  with  the  rest  of  the 
Sabbath,  the  type  of  the  highest,  the  spiritual, 
life.      Nothing,    certainly,   could   more    exactly 


VI.]  and  the  Doctrine  of  Evolution.  183 

match  the  doctrine  of  Evolution  than  this.     It 
is,  in  fact,  the  same  thing  said  from  a  different 
point  of  view.     All  this  is  done  by  casting  the 
account  into  the  form  of  a  week  of  work  with 
the   Sabbath  at  the   end.      In  so  constructing 
his  account,  the  writer  made  use  of  a  mode  of 
teaching  used  commonly  enough  in  the  Bible. 
The   symbolical   use  of   the   number   seven   is 
common  in  other  inspired  writers.      The  sym- 
bolical use  of  periods  of  time  is  not  without 
example.      That   the   purpose   of   the   account 
was  not  to  teach  great  truths,  but  to  give  men 
information  upon  scientific  questions,  is  incre- 
dible.    And,  in  fact,  if  w^e  look  in  this  account 
for  literal  history,  it  becomes  very  difficult  to 
give   any   meaning    to    what    is    said   of    the 
seventh  day,  or  to  reconcile  the  interpretation 
of    it   with    our   Lord's   words   concerning   the 
Sabbath,    *My    Father    worketh    hitherto,    and 
I  work.'     There  is  no  more  reason  for  setting 
aside    Geology,   because   it   does   not   agree    in 
detail    with   Genesis,  than  there  is  for  setting 
aside  Astronomy  because  all  through  the  Old 
Testament  the  sun  is  spoken  of  as  going  round 
the  earth. 


1 84    Apparent  Collision  between  Religion    [Lect. 

And  when  the  writer  of  Genesis  passes  from 
creation  in  general  to  man  in  particular,  it  is 
still  clear  that  he  has  no  mission  to  tell  those 
for  whom  he  was  writing  by  what  processes 
man  was  formed,  or  how  long  those  processes 
lasted.  This  was  as  alien  from  his  purpose  as 
it  would  have  been  to  tell  what  every  physio- 
logist now  knows  of  the  processes  by  which 
every  individual  man  is  developed  from  a  small 
germ  to  a  breathing  and  living  infant.  He 
takes  men — and  he  could  not  but  take  men  as 
he  sees  them — with  their  sinful  nature,  with 
their  moral  and  spiritual  capacity,  with  their 
relations  of  sex,  with  their  relations  of  family. 
He  has  to  teach  the  essential  supremacy  of 
man  among  creatures,  the  subordination  in 
position  but  equality  in  nature  of  woman  to 
man,  the  original  declension  of  man's  will  from 
the  divine  path,  the  dim  and  distant  but  sure 
hope  of  man's  restoration.  These  are  not,  and 
cannot  be,  lessons  of  science.  They  are  worked 
out  into  the  allegory  of  the  Garden  of  Eden. 
But  in  this  allegory  there  is  nothing  whatever 
that  crosses  the  path  of  science,  nor  is  it  for 
reasons  of  science  that  so  many  great  Christian 


VI.]  a7id  the  Doctrine  of  Evohttion,  185 

thinkers  from  the  earliest  age  of  the  Church 
downwards  have  pronounced  it  an  allegory. 
The  spiritual  truth  contained  in  it  is  certainly 
the  purpose  for  which  it  is  told  ;  and  evolution 
such  as  science  has  rendered  probable  had  done 
its  work  in  forming  man  such  as  he  is  before 
the  narrative  begins. 

It  may  be  said  that  it  seems  inconsistent 
with  the  dignity  of  man's  nature  as  described 
in  the  Bible  to  believe  that  his  formation  was 
effected  by  any  process  of  evolution,  still  more 
by  any  such  process  of  evolution  as  would  re- 
present him  to  have  been  an  animal  before  he 
became  a  man. 

But,  in  the  first  place,  it  is  to  be  observed 
that  Science  does  not  yet  assert,  and  there  is 
no  reason  to  believe  that  it  ever  will  assert, 
that  man  became  a  fully  developed  animal, 
with  the  brute  instincts  and  inclinations,  appe- 
tites and  passions,  fully  formed,  an  animal  such 
as  we  see  other  animals  now,  before  he  passed 
on  into  a  man  such  as  man  is  now.  His  body 
may  have  been  developed  according  to  the 
theory  of  Evolution,  yet  along  a  parallel  but 
independent  line  of  its  own  ;    but  at  any  rate 


i86    Apparent  Collision  between  Religion   [Lect. 

it  branched  off  from  other  animals  at  a  very 
early  point  in  the  descent  of  animal  life.     And, 
further,   as  Science  cannot  yet  assert  that  life 
was  not  introduced  into  the  world  when  made 
habitable    by    a    direct    creative    act,    so    too 
Science  cannot  yet  assert,  and   it   is  tolerably 
certain  will  never  assert,  that  the  higher  and 
added  life,  the  spiritual  faculty,  which  is  man's 
characteristic    prerogative,    was    not   given   to 
man  by  a  direct  creative  act  as  soon  as  the  body 
which  was  to  be  the  seat  and  the  instrument 
of  that  spiritual  faculty  had  been  sufficiently 
developed  to  receive  it.      That  the  body  should 
have  been  first  prepared,  and  that  when  it  was 
prepared  the  soul  should  either  have  been  then 
given,  or  then  first  made  to  live  in  the  image 
of  God, — this  is  a  supposition  which  is  incon- 
sistent   neither    with    what    the    Bible    tells 
nor  with   what    Science   has   up   to  this   time 
proved. 

And  to  this  must  be  added  that  it  is  out  of 
place  for  us  to  define  what  is  consistent  or 
inconsistent  with  the  dignity  of  man  in  the 
process  or  method  by  which  he  was  created  to 
be  what   he   is.      His  dignity  consists  in   his 


VI.]  aiid  the  Doctrine  of  Evolution.  187 

possession  of  the  spiritual  faculty,  and  not  in 
the  method  by  which  he  became  possessed  of 
it.  We  cannot  tell,  we  never  can  tell,  and  the 
Bible  never  professes  to  tell,  what  powers  or 
gifts  are  wrapped  up  in  matter  itself,  or  in 
that  living  matter  of  which  we  are  made. 
How  absolutely  nothing  we  know  of  the  mode 
by  which  any  single  soul  is  created  !  The  germ 
which  is  to  become  a  man  can  be  traced  by  the 
physiologist  through  all  the  changes  that  it  has 
to  undergo  before  it  comes  to  life.  Is  the 
future  soul  wrapped  up  in  it  from  the  first, 
and  dormant  till  the  hour  of  awakenins:  comes  \ 
or  is  it  given  at  some  moment  in  the  develop- 
ment ?  We  see  in  the  infant  how  its  powers 
expand,  and  we  know  that  the  spiritual  faculty, 
the  very  essence  of  its  being,  has  a  development 
like  the  other  faculties.  It  has  in  it  the  gift 
of  speech,  and  yet  it  cannot  speak.  Judgment, 
and  taste,  and  power  of  thought ;  self-sacrifice 
and  unswerving  truth ;  science  and  art,  and 
spiritual  understanding,  all  may  be  there  in 
abundant  measure  and  yet  may  show  no  sign. 
All  this  we  know;  and  because  it  is  common 
and  well   known   we  see   nothing   inconsistent 


1 88    Apparent  Collision  between  Religion    [Lect. 

with  the  dignity  of  our  nature  in  this  conceal- 
ment of  all  that  dignity,  helpless  and  powerless, 
within  the  form  of  an  infant  in  arms.  With 
this  before  us  it  is  impossible  to  say  that  any- 
thing which  Science  has  yet  proved,  or  ever 
has  any  chance  of  proving,  is  inconsistent  with 
the  place  given  to  man  in  Creation  by  the 
teaching  of  the  Bible. 

In  conclusion,  we  cannot  find  that  Science,  in 
teaching  Evolution,  has  yet  asserted  anything 
that  is  inconsistent  with  Eevelation,  unless  we 
assume  that  Revelation  was  intended  not  to 
teach  spiritual  truth  only,  but  physical  truth 
also.  Here,  as  in  all  similar  cases,  we  find 
that  the  writer  of  the  Book  of  Genesis,  like  all 
the  other  writers  in  the  Bible,  took  nature  as 
he  saw  it,  and  expressed  his  teaching  in  lan- 
guage corresponding  to  what  he  saw.  And 
the  doctrine  of  Evolution,  in  so  far  as  it  has 
been  shown  to  be  true,  does  but  fill  out  in 
detail  the  declaration  that  we  are  *  fearfully 
and  wonderfully  made ;  marvellous  are  Thy 
works  ;  and  that  my  soul  knoweth  right  well.' 
There  is  nothing  in  all  that  Science  has  yet 
taught,  or  is  on  the  way  to  teach,  which  con- 


VI.]  and  the  Doctrine  of  Evolution,  189 

flicts  with  the  doctrine  that  we  are  made  in 
the  Divine  Image,  rulers  of  the  creation  around 
us  by  a  Divine  superiority,  the  recipients  of  a 
E/Cvelation  from  a  Father  in  Heaven,  and  re- 
sponsible to  judgment  by  His  Law.  We  know 
not  how  the  first  human  soul  was  made,  just 
as  we  know  not  how  any  human  soul  has  been 
made  since ;  but  we  know  that  we  are,  in  a 
sense  in  which  no  other  creatures  living  with 
us  are,  the  children  of  His  special  care. 


LECTURE    VII. 

APPARENT  COLLISION  OF  SCIENCE  WITH  THE 
CLAIM  TO  SUPERNATURAL  POWER. 


The  claim  to  work  miracles  parallel  to  the  freedom  of  the 
will.  The  miracles  of  Revelation  need  not  he  miracles  of 
Science.  Our  Lord's  Resurrection,  and  His  miracles  of 
healing,  possibly  not  miraculous  in  the  scientific  sense. 
Different  aspect  of  miracles  now  and  at  the  time  when  the 
Revelation  was  given.  Miracles  attested  by  the  Apostles, 
by  our  Lord's  character,  by  our  Lord's  power.  Nature  of 
evidence  required  to  prove  miracles ;  not  such  as  to  put 
physical  above  spiritual  evidence ;  not  such  as  to  be  unsuited 
to  their  own  day.  Impossibility  of  demonstrating  universal 
uniformity.  Revelation  no  obstacle  to  the  progress  of 
Science. 


LECTURE   VII. 

APPARENT  COLLISION  OF  SCIENCE  WITH  THE 
CLAIM  TO  SUPERNATURAL  POWER. 

'Believe  Me  that  I  am  in  the  Father,  and  the  Father  in 
Me :  or  else  believe  Me  for  the  very  works'  sake.' 
St.  John  xiv.  1 1 . 

• 

OCIENCE  and  Religion  come  into  apparent 
collision  on  the  question  of  the  freedom 
of  the  will.  Science  and  Revelation  come  into 
a  similar  apparent  collision  on  the  possibility 
of  miracles.  The  cases  are  precisely  parallel. 
In  each  individual  man  the  uniformity  of  nature 
is  broken  to  leave  room  for  the  moral  force  of 
the  will  to  assert  its  independent  existence. 
This  breach  of  uniformity  is  within  very  narrow 
limits,  and  occurs  much  more  rarely  than  ap- 
pears at  first  sight.  But  the  demand  to  admit 
not  only  the  possibility  but  the  fact  of  this 
breach  is  imperative,  and  to  deny  it  is  to  turn 

o 


194      Apparent  Collision  of  Science  with     [Lect. 

the  command  of  the  Moral  Law  as  revealed  in 
the  conscience  into  a  delusion.  So,  too,  Eeve- 
lation  asserts  its  right  to  set  aside  the  uni- 
formity of  nature  to  leave  room  for  a  direct 
communication  from  God  to  man.  It  is  an 
essential  part  of  the  Divine  Moral  Law  to  claim 
supremacy  over  the  physical  world.  Unless 
somehow  or  other  the  moral  ultimately  rules 
the  physical,  the  Moral  Law  cannot  rightly 
claim  our  absolute  obedience.  Kevelation  as 
given  to  us  maintains  that  this  superiority  has 
been  asserted  in  fact  here  in  the  world  of 
phenomena.  To  deny  this  is  very  nearly  equi- 
valent to  denying  that  any  revelation  has  been 
made.  In  this  way  Eevelation  asserts  for 
God's  message  to  the  human  race  precisely  the 
same  breach  of  uniformitv  which  everv  man's 
conscience  claims  for  himself  in  regard  to  his 
own  conduct. 

It  is,  however,  necessary  to  point  out  that 
when  we  speak  of  a  breach  of  uniformity  we 
are  never  in  a  position  to  deny  that  the  breach 
of  uniformity  may  be  physical  only  and  per- 
haps apparent  only.  It  may  be  found,  it  pro- 
bably will  be  found,  at  last  that  the  Moral  Law 


VII.]      the  Claim  to  Siipcrnatitr at  Power,      195 

has  in  some  way  always  maintained  its  own 
uniformity  unbroken.  The  Moral  Law  has  in 
its  essence  an  elasticity  which  the  physical  law 
has  not.  It  often  takes  the  form,  that,  given 
certain  conduct,  there  will  follow  certain  con- 
sequences ;  and  the  law  is  kept  though  the 
conduct  is  free.  It  is  further  possible,  and 
Eevelation  has  no  interest  in  denying  it,  that 
the  intervention  which  has  apparently  disturbed 
the  sequence  of  phenomena  is,  after  all,  that  of 
a  higher  physical  law  as  yet  vmknown.  For 
instance,  the  miraculous  healing  of  the  sick  may 
be  no  miiacle  in  the  strictest  sense  at  all.  It 
may  be  but  an  instance  of  the  power  of  mind 
over  body,  a  power  which  is  undeniably  not  yet 
brought  within  the  range  of  Science,  and  which 
nevertheless  may  be  really  within  its  domain. 
In  other  wavs  what  seems  to  be  miraculous 
may  be  simply  unusual.  And  it  must  therefore 
be  always  remembered  that  Eevelation  is  not 
bound  bv  the  scientific  definition  of  a  miracle, 
and  that  if  all  the  miraculous  events  recorded 
in  the  Bible  happened  exactly  as  they  are  told, 
and  if  Science  were  some  day  able  to  show  that 
they  could  be  accounted  for  by  natural  causes 

o  2 


196      Apparent  Collision  of  Science  zuith     [Lect. 

working  at  the  time  in  each  aise,  this  would 
not  in  any  way  affect  their  character,  as  regards 
the  Eevelation  which  thev  were  worked  to 
prove  or  of  which  they  form  a  part.  Revela- 
tion uses  these  events  for  its  own  purposes. 
Some  of  these  events  are  spoken  of  as  evidences 
of  a  divine  mission.  Some  of  them  are  substan- 
tive facts  embraced  in  the  message  delivered. 
And  if  for  these  purposes  they  have  served 
their  turn,  if  they  have  arrested  attention  which 
would  not  otherwise  have  been  arrested,  if  they 
have  overcome  prejudices,  if  they  have  compelled 
belief,  the  fact  that  they  are  afterwards  dis- 
covered to  be  no  breach  of  the  law  of  uniformity 
has  no  bearing  at  all  on  the  Kevelation  to  which 
they  belong.  The  miracle  would  in  that  case 
consist  in  the  precise  coincidence  in  time  with 
the  purpose  which  they  served,  or  in  the  man- 
ner and  degree  in  which  they  marked  out  the 
Man  who  wrought  them  from  all  other  men,  or 
in  the  foreshadowing  of  events  Avhich  are  in 
the  distant  future. 

Thus,  for  instance,  it  is  quite  possible  that 
our  Lord's  Eesurrection  may  be  found  here- 
after to  be  no  miracle  at  all  in  the  scientific 


VII.]      the  Claun  to  Supernatural  Power.       197 

sense.  It  foreshadows  and  begins  the  general 
Eesurrection ;  when  that  general  Eesurrection 
comes  we  may  find  that  it  is,  after  all,  the  natural 
issue  of  physical  laws  always  at  work. 

There  is  nothing  at  present  to  indicate  any- 
thing of  the  sort;  but  a  general  resurrection 
in  itself  implies  not  a  special  interference  but 
a  general  rule.  If,  when  we  rise  again,  we 
find  that  this  resurrection  is  and  always  was  a 
part  of  the  Divine  purpose,  and  brought  about 
at  last  by  machinery  precisely  the  same  in  kind 
as  that  which  has  been  used  in  making  and 
governing  the  world,  we  may  also  find  that  our 
Lord's  Eesurrection  was  brought  about  by  the 
operation  of  precisely  the  same  machinery.  We 
may  find  that  even  in  the  language  of  strict 
science  '  He  was  the  first  fruits  of  them  that 
slept,'  and  that  His  Eesurrection  was  not  a 
miracle,  but  the  first  instance  of  the  w^orkinc)* 
of  a  law  till  the  last  day  quite  unknown,  but 
on  that  last  day  operative  on  all  that  ever 
lived. 

Let  us  compare  the  general  resurrection  with 
the  first  introduction  of  fife  into  the  world. 
As  far  as  scientific  observation  has  yet  gone  that 


1 98      Apparent  Collision  of  Science  with     [Lect. 


first  introduction  of  life  was  a  miracle.  No 
one  has  ever  yet  succeeded  in  tracing  it  to  the 
operation  of  any  known  laws.  If  it  is  a  miracle 
it  is  a  miracle  precisely  similar  in  kind  to  the 
miracle  which  believers  are  expecting  at  the 
last  day.  And  assuredly  if  a  miracle  was 
once  worked  to  introduce  life  into  this  habitable 
world,  there  is  very  good  reason  to  expect  that 
another  miracle  will  be  worked  hereafter  to 
restore  life  to  those  that  have  lived.  But  there 
are  scientific  men  who  think  that  the  intro- 
duction of  life  was  not  a  miracle,  that  it  came 
at  the  fitting  moment  by  the  working  of  natural 
laws ;  or,  in  other  words,  that  such  properties 
are  inherent  in  the  elements  of  which  proto- 
plasm is  made  that  in  certain  special  circum- 
stances these  elements  will  not  only  combine 
but  that  the  product  of  their  combination  will 
live.  If  this  be  so,  it  is  assuredly  no  such  very 
strange  supposition  that  there  may  be  such 
properties  inherent  in  our  bodies  or  in  certain 
particles,  whether  particles  of  matter  or  not, 
belonging  to  our  bodies,  that  in  certain  special 
circumstances  these  particles  will  return  to  life. 
And  if  this  be  so  the  general  resurrection  may 


VII.]      the  Claim  to  Sitpeiniatitral  Power.       199 

be  no  miracle,  but  the  result  of  the  properties 
originally  inherent  in  our  bodies  and  of  the 
working  of  the  laws  of  those  properties.  And 
as  the  general  resurrection  so  our  Lord's  Re- 
surrection may  in  this  way  turn  out  to  be  no 
breach  of  the  uniformity  of  nature. 

But  this  new  discovery,  if  then  made,  would 
not  affect  the  place  which  our  Lord's  Hesur- 
rection  holds  in  the  records  of  Revelation.  It 
is  not  the  pur23ose  of  Bevelation  to  interfere 
with  the  course  of  nature  ;  if  such  interference 
be  needless,  and  the  work  of  revealing  God  to 
man  can  be  done  without  it,  there  is  no  reason 
whatever  to  believe  that  any  such  interference 
would  take  place. 

Or,  take  again  any  of  our  Lord's  miracles  of 
healing.  Tliere  is  no  question  at  all  that  the 
power  of  mind  over  body  is  exceedingly  great, 
and  has  never  yet  been  thoroughly  examined. 
We  know  almost  nothing  of  the  extent  of  this 
power,  of  its  laws,  of  its  limits.  Marvellous 
recoveries  often  astonish  the  physician,  and  he 
cannot  account  for  them  except  by  supposing 
that  in  some  way  the  powers  of  the  mind  have 
been  routed  to  interfere  with  the  working  of  the 


200     Apparent  Collision  of  Science  with     [Lect, 


nervous  system.  And  some  men,  on  the  other 
hand,  have  died  or  their  health  has  been  shattered 
by  mere  imaginations.  Some  men  of  note  have 
attributed  the  recoveries  claimed  for  homoeopathy 
to  this  cause.  Some  have  assigned  to  this 
cause  the  extraordinarv  cures  that  have  been 
undeniably  w^rought  at  the  shrines,  or  on  sight 
or  touch  of  the  relics,  of  Roman  Catholic  saints. 
The  different  impostures  that  have  on  many 
occasions  prevailed  for  a  time  and  then  lost  their 
reputation  and  passed  out  of  fashion,  are  gener- 
ally supposed  to  have  owed  their  short-lived 
success  to  the  same  obscure  v^orking  of  unknown 
natural  laws.  They  have  been  tested  by  their 
successes  and  their  failures.  They  have  suc- 
ceeded, and  for  a  time  continued  to  succeed  ;  bat 
at  last  thev  have  ceased  to  work  because  faith  in 
them  for  some  reason  or  other  has  been  shaken 
down.  Their  falsehood  has  thus  been  detected  ; 
but  nevertheless  their  genuine  success  for  a  time 
has  been  enough  to  show  that  they  rested  on  a 
reality,  and  that  reality  seems  to  have  consisted 
in  the  strange  power  of  mind  over  body.  In 
this  region  all  is  at  present  unexamined ;  and 
all  operations  are  tentative,  and  for  that  reason 


Yll.]      the  Claim  to  Supernatural  P owe/.      201 

most  are  only  successful  for  a  time.  Now  our 
Lord's  miracles  are  never  tentative  ;  that  is  not 
the  character  given  to  them  either  by  friend  or 
by  foe.  Nor  is  there  any  instance  recorded  either 
by  friend  or  by  foe  of  an  attempted  miracle  not 
accomplished.  Nowhere  is  there  any  record 
given  us  by  the  assailants  of  the  Gospel  of  any 
instance  of  His  action  parallel  to  the  record 
given  in  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  of  the  seven 
sons  of  Sceva  the  Jew.  The  accounts  of  his 
enemies  charc^e  Him  with  deceit,  which  is  identi- 
cal  with  saying  that  they  did  not  believe  Him. 
But  they  do  not  ever  charge  Him  with  failure. 
Nevertheless  it  is  quite  conceivable  that  many  of 
His  miracles  of  healing  may  have  been  the  result 
of  this  power  of  mind  over  body  which  we  are 
now  considering.  It  is  possible  that  they  may 
be  due  not  to  an  interference  with  the  uniformity 
of  nature,  but  to  a  superiority  in  His  mental 
power  to  the  similar  power  possessed  by  other 
men.  Men  seem  to  possess  this  power  both  over 
their  own  bodies  and  over  the  bodies  of  others  in 
different  degrees.  Some  can  influence  other 
mens  bodies  through  their  minds  more  ;  some 
less.      Possibly    He  may    have   possessed    this 


202      Apparent  Collision  of  Science  with     [Lect. 


power  absolutely  where  others  possessed  it 
conditionally.  He  may  have  possessed  it  with- 
out limit  ;  others  within  limits.  If  this  were 
so,  these  acts  of  healing  would  not  be  miracles 
in  the  strictly  scientific  sense.  They  would 
imply  very  great  superiority  in  Him  to  other 
men.  But  they  would  be  in  themselves  under 
the  law  of  uniformity.  Now  it  is  clear  that 
if  this  should  turn  out  to  be  so,  though  these 
acts  would  not  be  mJracles  for  the  purposes 
of  Science,  they  would  still  be  miracles  for  the 
purposes  of  Revelation.  They  would  do  their 
work  in  arresting  attention,  and  still  more  in 
accrediting  both  the  message  and  \hQ  Messenger. 
They  would  separate  Him  from  ordinary  men. 
They  w^ould  prove  Him  to  be  possessed  of  cre- 
dentials w^orth  examining.  To  the  believer  it 
would  make  no  difference  whether  Science  called 
them  miracles  or  not.  To  him  it  would  still 
remain  the  fact  that  here  was  a  Messenger  whom 
God  had  seen  fit  to  endow  with  powers  which 
no  other  man  ever  possessed  in  such  degree  and 
such  completeness,  though  others  may  have 
possessed  some  touch  of  them  greater  or  less. 
Furtlier,  it  is  necessary  to  repe;it  what  was 


vil.")      the  Claim  to  Siipemattiral  Power,      203 

briefly  remarked  in  a  previous  Lecture,  that  the 
position  which  miracles  take  as  regards  us  who 
read  them  manv  centuries  after,  and  as  reorards 
those  who  witnessed  and  recorded  them  at  the 
time,  is  quite  different.  To  them  the  miracles 
were  the  lirst  and  often  the  chief  j)roof  tliat  the 
man  who  wrouo:ht  them  had  been  sent  bv  God, 
and  that  His  message  was  a  revelation,  not  an 
imposture ;  to  us  they  are,  if  accepted  at  all, 
accepted  as  a  part  of  the  revelation  itself 
There  are  no  doubt  a  few  minds  that  are  con- 
vinced by  Paley's  argument,  and  beginning  with 
accepting  the  miracles  as  proved  by  sufficient 
external  evidence,  go  on  to  accept  the  conclusion 
that  therefore  the  teaching  that  was  thus  accom- 
panied must  be  divine.  But  most  men  are  quite 
unable  to  take  to  pieces  in  tliis  way  the  records 
in  which  Eevelation  is  contained,  and  to  go  from 
external  evidence  taken  alone  to  the  messeno-ers 
who  thus  proved  their  mission,  and  thence  to  the 
substance  of  the  message  which  they  taught.  To 
most  of  us,  on  the  contrary,  the  Eevelation  is  a 
whole,capable  of  being  looked  at  from  many  sides, 
and  found  to  be  divine  from  whatever  side  it  is 
teen  ;  and  one  of  its  aspects  is  this  supernatural 


204      Apparent  Collision  of  Science  with     [Lect. 

character  by  which  it  appears  to  assert  its  identity 
with  that  Moral  Law  which  claims  absolute  supre- 
macy over  all  the  physical  world.  The  main  evi- 
dence of  the  Eevelation  to  us  consists  in  its 
harmony  with  the  voice  of  the  spiritual  faculty 
within  us;  and  the  claim  which  it  asserts  to  have 
come  through  teachers  endowed  with  supernatural 
power  is  so  far  corroborative  evidence  as  it  falls  in 
with  the  essential  character  of  the  Moral  Law. 
That  eternal  law  claims  supremacy  over  the  physi- 
cal world  and  actually  asserts  it  in  the  freedom  of 
the  human  will ;  and  a  Bevelation  which  comes 
from  Him  Who  in  His  own  essential  Being  is 
that  very  law  personified,  might  be  expected  to 
exhibit  the  same  claim  in  actual  manifestation 
in  its  approach  to  men. 

Bearing  these  limitations  and  characteristics 
of  the  miraculous  element  in  the  Bible  in  mind, 
let  us  ask  how  that  miraculous  element  is  therein 
presented. 

First,  in  the  account  of  the  creation,  it  is 
taught  that  the  original  existence  of  all  matter 
flows  from  a  spiritual  source.  We  do  not  define 
God  as  the  cause,  meaning  that  that  is  His 
essence,  and  that  except  as  causing  other  things 


Til.]      the  Claim  to  Supernatural  Power,       205 

to  exist  He  does  not  exist  Himself.  But  we 
describe  Hira  as  the  Cause,  meaning  that  all 
things  exist  by  His  Will,  and  that  without  His 
Will  nothinfif  could  ever  have  existed.  And  as 
the  Eevelation  tells  us  that  He  is  the  source 
of  all  existence,  the  Creator  of  the  substance  of 
things,  so  too  does  it  assert  that  He  gave  all 
things  their  special  properties  and  the  laws  of 
those  properties,  and  that  not  only  the  original 
creation,  but  all  the  subsequent  history  of  all 
things  has  been  the  outcome  of  His  design,  and 
that  He  has  thus  prescribed  the  government  of 
the  whole  universe.  And  yet  again  the  Eevela- 
tion from  the  beginning  to  the  end  maintains  His 
living  Presence  in  and  over  all  things  that  He 
has  thus  formed,  and  denies  that  He  has  parted 
with  His  power  to  do  fresh  acts  of  creation,  fresh 
acts  of  government,  whenever  and  wherever  He 
sees  fit.  For  He  is  necessarily  free  and  cannot 
be  restrained  by  anything  but  His  own  holiness. 
And  unless  He  expressly  revealed  to  us  that 
His  own  holiness  prevented  Him  from  inter- 
fering with  His  own  creation,  we  could  not  put 
limits  to  what  He  could  do.  The  Eevelation  that 
He  has  given  us  says  just  the   contrary,  and 


2o6      Apparent  Collision  of  Silence  with     [Lect. 

from  end  to  end  implies  that  He  is  present  in 
the  government  of  the  creation  which  He  lias 
made. 

What  evidence,  then,  is  there  in  the  world  of 
phenomena  that  He  has  ever  thus  interfered  \ 
Putting  aside  as  untenable  all  idea  of  a  priori 
impossibility,  admitting  that  God  can  w^ork  a 
miracle  if  He  will,  admitting  that  a  miracle 
avowedly  worked  in  the  interest  of  a  divine 
revelation  stands  on  a  totally  different  footing 
from  a  miracle  avowedly  worked  in  auy  other 
interest,  putting  the  breach  of  the  law  of  uni- 
formity made  by  a  miracle  on  the  same  footing 
as  the  breach  of  the  same  law  made  bv  a  human 
will ;  we  have  to  ask  what  evidence  can  be  given 
that  any  such  miracles  as  are  recorded  in  the 
Bible  have  ever  been  worked  ? 

It  is  plain  at  once  that  the  answer  must  be 
given  by  the  New  Testament.  No  such  evidence 
can  now  be  produced  on  behalf  of  the  miracles  in 
the  Old  Testament.  The  times  are  reniote  ;  the 
date  and  authorship  of  the  Books  not  estab- 
lished with  certainty;  the  mixture  of  poetry 
with  history  no  longer  capable  of  any  sure 
separation  into  its  parts  ;  and,  if  the  New  Testa- 


VII.]      the  Claim  to  Szcpeniatural  Power,       207 

ment  did  not  exist,  it  would  be  impossible  to 
show  such  a  distinct  preponderance  of  proba- 
bility as  would  justify  us  in  calling  on  any  to 
accept  the  miraculous  parts  of  the  narrative  as 
historically  true. 

But  in  the  New  Testament  we  stand  on 
different  ground.  And  we  have  here  first  the 
evidence  which  Paley  has  put  together  to  show 
that  the  early  Christians  spent  their  lives  and 
finally  surrendered  their  lives  as  witnesses  to  a 
Gospel  which  included  miracles  both  among  its 
evidences  and  as  part  of  its  substance.  It  is  not 
possible  to  get  rid  of  miracles  nor  the  belief  in 
miracles  from  the  history  of  the  Apostles.  They 
testify  to  our  Lord's  Resurrection  as  to  an  actual 
fact,  and  make  it  the  basis  of  all  their  preaching. 
They  testify  to  our  Lord's  miracles  as  part  of  the 
character  of  His  life.  It  is  necessary  to  main- 
tain that  they  were  mere  fanatics  with  no  claim 
to  respect  but  ratlier  to  the  pity  which  we  feel 
for  utterly  ignorant  goodness,  if  we  are  to  hold 
that  no  miracle  was  ever  wrought  by  our  Lord. 
It  is  difficult  to  maintain  even  their  honesty 
if  they  preached  the  Resurrection  of  our  Lord 
without  any  basis  of  fact  to  rest  on.     No  man 


2o8      Apparent  Collision  of  Science  with     [Lect. 


who  is  not  determined  to  uphold  an  opinion  at 
all  hazards  can  question  that  St.  Paul  and 
St.  Peter  believed  that  our  Lord  rose  from  the 
dead,  and  that  they  died  for  and  in  that  belief 

But,  in  the  second  place,  behind  the  Apostles 
stands  our  Lord  Himself,  and  whatever  may  be 
said  of  the  documents  that  compose  the  New 
Testament,  they  are  at  any  rate  sufficient  to  show 
that  our  Lord  was  universally  believed  by  His 
disciples  to  have  the  power  of  working  miracles 
and  to  have  often  worked  them.  There  is  no 
hesitation  in  reirard  to  this  :  no  hint  of  anv 
doubt.  But  not  only  so,  there  is  no  hint  of  any 
disclaimer  on  His  part.  He  must  have  known 
whether  He  could  work  miracles  or  not.  He 
must  have  known  that  His  disciples  believed 
Him  to  possess  the  power.  There  is  not  the 
slightest  trace  of  His  ever  having  implied  that 
this  was  a  misconception.  He  did  sometimes 
disclaim  what  was  ascribed  to  Him,  even  when 
what  was  ascribed  to  Him  was  truly  His,  but 
was  ascribed  to  Him  without  real  knowledge  of 
what  it  implied.  '  Why  callest  thou  Me  good  ? 
There  is  none  good  but  One,  that  is,  God,'  we  do 
find.     But  '  Why  askest  thou  Me  to  do  this  ? 


Vll].      the  Claim  to  Supernatural  Power.       209 


There  is  none  that  can  do  this  but  One,  that  is 
God/  we  do  NOT  find.  It  is  plain  that  He 
accepted  the  belief  that  assigned  Him  powers 
above  those  of  other  men— powers  given  Him 
by  His  Father  in  heaven — and  never  discouraged 
it.  Nay,  He  demanded  it.  Take  the  lowest 
ground,  and  admit  for  argument's  sake  that  the 
New  Testament  contains  a  legendary  element, 
and  still  you  cannot  cut  the  miracles  out  of  the 
Gospels  and  Epistles  without  altering  them 
beyond  recognition.  The  Jesus  Christ  presented 
to  us  in  the  New  Testament  would  become  a 
different  person  if  the  miracles  were  removed. 
And  if  He  claimed  to  possess  and  exercise  this 
jDOwer,  the  evidence  becomes  the  evidence  of 
One  Who  must  have  known  and  Whom  we 
cannot  disbelieve. 

And  this  claim,  which  He  has  thus  made,  and 
which  was  thus  accepted  by  His  disciples,  is 
corroborated  by  the  power,  different  in  form  but 
similar  in  kind,  which  He  exerted  then  on  the 
men  of  His  own  day,  and  has  ever  since  con- 
tinued to  exert  on  all  succeeding  generations. 
The  first  disciples  were  under  His  absolute 
dominion.     They  preached  Christ  and  not  them- 

P 


2IO     Apparent  Collision  of  Science  with     [Lect. 

selves.  They  referred  everything  to  Him,  and 
professed  to  have  no  power  but  from  Him. 
St.  Paul  with  all  his  genius  and  marvellous 
power  of  influence,  yet  professes  to  be  nothing 
without  Christ  and  to  be  everything  in  Christ. 
Our  Lord  left  no  writing  behind  Him,  but  com- 
mitted His  Eevelation  to  His  Apostles,  and  we 
only  know  Him  through  them.  But  they  are 
not  like  ordinary  disciples  of  a  great  teacher ; 
philosophers  succeeding  a  philosopher  ;  prophets 
succeeding  a  prophet.  To  no  one  of  them  does 
it  occur  for  a  moment  to  teach  anything  except 
as  from  Him.  St.  Paul  gives  advice  sometimes 
which  he  does  not  profess  to  be  giving  by  our 
Lord's  command,  but  when  he  does  so,  he  puts 
the  mark  of  his  own  inferiority  on  what  he  says, 
and  claims  for  it  no  such  authority  as  belongs  to 
a  word  from  Christ.  A  word  from  Christ  was 
final  on  all  subjects. 

And  this  power  over  men  has  never  weakened 
from  that  day  to  this.  There  is  no  other  power 
like  it  in  the  world.  Science  proceeds  in  far  the 
majority  of  cases  by  trial  of  some  theory  as  a 
working  hypothesis.  Such  too  has  been  the  pro- 
cedure of  Christian  Faith.     Trust  Christ ;   stake 


vn.]     the  Claim  to  Supernatural  Power,       i  \  i 

your  happiness  on  Him  ;  stake  your  hope  of 
satisfying  all  spiritual  aspirations  on  Him ;  stake 
your  power  of  winning  the  victory  over  tempta- 
tion on  Him — this  is  the  exhortation  of  Apostle, 
and  martyr,  and  saint,  and  evangelist,  and 
pastor,  and  teacher.  And  those  who  have  thus 
tried  the  strength  of  the  Christian  hypothesis 
have  not  failed.  The  Christian  Church  has 
been  stained  with  many  a  blot.  Ill  deeds  have 
been  wrought  in  the  name  of  Christ.  Evil  laws 
have  been  passed.  Strange  superstitions  have 
prevailed.  But  no  other  body  can  show  such 
saints,  no  other  body  can  produce  so  great  a 
cloud  of  witnesses.  It  is  certain  that  the  lives 
and  the  deaths,  the  characters  and  the  aims,  of 
those  w^ho  have  trusted  their  all  to  Christ  have 
made  them  what  He  bade  them  be,  the  salt  of 
the  earth.  And  they  testify  with  one  voice 
that  they  know  no  other  power  which  has 
upheld  them  but  the  power  of  Christ  whom 
they  have  taken  for  their  Lord.  Others  have 
sometimes  been  set  up  as  in  some  sort  rivals  to 
Him  as  teachers  or  as  examples  ;  but  here  there 
is  no  rival  even  pretended.  In  no  other  man 
have  men  been  called  on  to  believe  as  a  living 

P  2 


212      Appai'ent  Collision  of  Science  with     [Lect. 

present  power,  able  to  give  strengtli  and  victory 
in  the  conflicts  of  the  soul.  The  Church,  too, 
has  passed  through  times  of  spiritual  depression, 
we  may  almost  say  of  degradation.  And  in 
the  worst  of  times  within  the  Church  there 
has  always  remained  a  wonderful  recuperative 
])ower,  which  has  shaken  off  inconsistencies  and 
defects  in  the  past,  and  will  do  so  yet  more 
in  the  future.  But  this  recuperative  power 
has  always  shown  itself  in  one  form,  and  in 
one  form  only,  namely,  a  return  to  Christ  and 
to  trust  in  Him,  a  trust  which  has  never  been 
falsified. 

The  martyrdom  of  our  Lord's  disciples  is 
enough  to  prove  that  belief  in  His  supernatural 
powers  and  in  His  exercise  of  those  powers  was 
no  gradual  growth  of  later  times,  but  from  the 
very  beginning  rooted  in  the  convictions  of 
those  who  must  have  known  the  truth.  The 
character  of  our  Lord  as  revealed  in  the  Gospels 
makes  it  impossible  to  disbelieve  His  claims 
whatever  they  may  be.  His  power  attested  by 
generations  of  believers  ever  since  corroborates 
those  claims  by  the  persistent  evidence  of 
eighteen  centuries. 


VII.]     the  Claim  to  Supernatural  Power,       2 1 


Against  this  evidence  what  is  to  be  said  ? 

It  is  said  that  the  evidence  for  the  uniformity 
of  nature  is  so  overwhelming  that  nothing  can 
set  it  aside.  And  further  it  is  said,  that,  even 
if  it  be  conceded  that  it  might  be  set  aside, 
no  evidence  sufficient  for  the  purpose  has  yet 
been  produced. 

Now  to  deal  with  this  second  assertion  first, 
we  must  ask  what  is  the  nature  of  the  evidence 
that  would  be  deemed  sufficient  ?     If  the  in- 
quirer does  not  believe  that  God  created  and 
still  governs  the  world,  assuredly  no  evidence 
will  ever  be  sufficient  to  convince  him  that  God 
has  worked  a  miracle.     The  existence  of  God  is 
certainly  not  to  be  proved  by  His  interference 
with  nature.     Had  He  desired  to  reveal  Himself 
to  us  primarily  in  that  way,  He  would  have 
wrought   many   more    miracles    than   we    now 
know  of,  and  would  have  kept  our  faith  alive 
by  perpetual  and  unmistakeable  manifestations 
of  His  presence   and  power.     But  He  has,  not 
so  willed.     He  has  made  our  belief  in  Him  rest 
mainly  on  the  voice  within  ourselves,  in  order 
that  we  might  walk  by  faith  and  not  by  sight. 
It  will  be  a  hopeless  task  to  convince  men  that 


214      Apparent  Collision  of  Science  with     [Lect. 

there  is  a  God  by  pointing,  not  to  His  creation 
but  to  His  interference  with  creation.  But  if 
a  man  do  believe  there  is  a  God,  what  kind  of 
evidence  ought  he  to  expect  to  show  him  that 
God  has  interfered  in  the  course  of  the  creation  \ 
In  the  first  place,  he  must  not  expect  that 
the  physical  evidence,  that  is  the  miraculous 
evidence,  for  Kevelation  should  be  of  such  a 
character  as  to  stand  above  the  spiritual  evi- 
dence. Just  as  the  fundamental  evidence  for  the 
existence  of  a  God  is  to  be  found  in  the  voice 
of  conscience,  and  the  arguments  from  design 
and  from  the  order  and  beauty  and  visible  pur- 
pose of  the  creation  are  secondary — corrobora- 
tive not  demonstrative — so  too  the  primary 
evidence  of  a  Kevelation  from  God  must  be 
found  in  the  harmony  of  that  Eevelation  with 
the  voice  of  conscience,  and  only  the  secondary 
and  corroborative  evidence  is  to  be  looked  for 
in  miracles.  And  in  both  cases  the  reason  is 
the  same.  For  it  is  not  God's  purpose  to  win 
the  intellectually  gifted,  the  wise,  the  cultivated, 
the  clever,  but  to  win  the  spiritually  gifted,  the 
humble,  the  tender-hearted,  the  souls  that  are 
discontented  with  their  own  shortcomings,  the 


VII.]     the  Claim  to  Supernatural  Power.       215 

souls  that  have  a  capacity  for  finding  happiness 
in  self-sacrifice.  It  would  defeat  the  purpose 
of  the  Revelation  made  to  us  if  the  hard-headed 
should  have  an  advantage  in  accepting  it  over 
the  humble-minded.  The  evidence  must  be 
such  that  spiritual  character  shall  be  an  element 
in  the  acceptance  of  it.  There  would  be  a  con- 
tradiction, if  the  faculty  whereby  we  mainly 
recognised  God  were  the  spiritual  faculty,  and 
the  faculty  whereby  we  mainly  recognised  His 
Eevelation  were  the  scientific  faculty. 

And,  in  the  second  place,  we  have  no  right 
to  expect  that  the  evidence  for  miracles  wrought 
in  one  age  should  be  such  evidence  as  properly 
belongs  to  another  age.  It  is  sometimes  urged 
that  the  evidence  supplied  by  the  testimony  of 
the  early  Christians  is  of  little  value  because 
it  was  never  cioss-examined.  No  such  precau- 
tions surrounded  the  evidence  as  would  now  be 
required  to  give  any  value  to  evidence  of  similar 
events.  The  witnesses  gave  up  their  lives  to 
attest  what  they  taught ;  but  there  was  no  one 
to  scrutinise  what  thev  asserted.  St.  PauFs 
evidence  on  our  Lord's  Hesurrection  cannot  now 
be  put  to  the  test  of  searching  questions.     But 


2 1 6      Apparent  Collision  of  Science  with     [Lect. 


to  make  such  objections  as  these  is  to  make 
what  is  on  the  face  of  it  an  absurd  demand. 
It  is  to  ask  that  the  scientific  processes  of  the 
nineteenth  century  should  have  been  anticipated 
in  the  first,  that  men  should  be  miraculously 
guided  to  supply  a  kind  of  evidence  which 
would  be  utterly  superfluous  at  the  time  in 
order  to  be  convincing  eighteen  hundred  years 
afterwards.  This  would  indeed  have  put  the 
miraculous  incidents  in  the  New  Testament 
narrative  altogether  out  of  place,  and  made 
the  miracles  more  important  than  the  Eevela- 
tion  which  they  were  worked  to  introduce. 

Now,  if  these  two  conditions  are  borne  in 
mind,  it  is  difficult  to  see  what  better  evidence 
could  be  obtained  of  a  miraculous  life  than  we 
possess  concerning  the  life  of  our  Lord. 

The  moral  and  spiritual  evidence  is  His  own 
character  which  intentionally  overshadows  all 
the  rest,  and  it  is  inconceivable  that  He  should 
have  made  a  false  claim.  And  the  material 
evidence  is  the  testimony  of  men  who  freely 
gave  their  lives  in  proof  of  what  they  said. 
Nor  has  anything  yet  been  said  or  written  to 
shake  Paley's  argument  on  this  point. 


YII.]      the  Claim  to  Super natiir at  Power.       1 1 7 

But,  if  we  pass  on  to  the  other  objection,  that 
no  evidence  can  ever  be   sufficient  to  prove  a 
miracle  because  the  evidence  for  the  uniformity 
of  nature  is  so  overwhehning,  we  can  only  see 
in  such  an  assertion  an  instance  of  that  inability 
to   get   out    of  an   accustomed  groove   against 
which  Science    has   perpetually  to  guard.      In 
Science  the  uniformity    of  nature  is  so  indis- 
pensable a  postulate,  that  without  it  we  cannot 
stir  a  step.     And  if  the  student  of  Science  is  to 
admit  a  breach,  it  can  only  be  by  stepping  out- 
side of  his  science  for  the  time  and  conceiving 
the  possibility  that  there  is  some  other  truth 
beside  scientific  truth,  and  some  other  kind  of 
evidence  beside  scientific  evidence.      We    have 
all  heard  of  the  need  of  guarding  against  the 
bondage  in  which  custom  binds  the  mind.     We 
have  heard  of  the  student  who  when  first  he 
saw  a  locomotive  looked  perseveringly  for  the 
horses  that  impelled  it,  because  he  had  never 
known,  and  consequently  could  not  imagine  any 
other  mode    of  producing   such    motion.     But 
this  danger  attends  not  only  the  separate  in- 
vestigations which  Science  makes  into   pheno- 
mena ;  it  attends  Science  as  a  whole.     And  it 


2i8      Apparent  Collision  of  Science  with     [Lect. 

is  necessary  repeatedly  to  insist  on  the  fact  that 
Science  has  not  proved  and  cannot  prove  that 
the  scientific  domain  is  co-extensive  with  nature 
itself. 

The  evidence  for  the  nniformity  of  nature 
consists  in  the  fact  that  from  the  beginning  of 
Science  the  known  reign  of  physical  law  has 
been  steadily  extending  without  a  check  ;  that 
instance  after  instance  of  apparent  exception 
has  been  brought  by  further  examination  within 
its  province ;  that  the  hypothesis  of  uniformity 
has  now  been  long  on  trial  and  has  never  yet 
been  found  to  fail ;  that  no  one  who  has  so  tried 
it  has  the  slightest  hesitation  in  trusting  it  for 
the  future,  as  he  has  proved  it  in  the  past. 
But  clearly  as  this  evidence  proves  a  general, 
it  never  gets  beyond  a  general,  uniformity.  It 
has  not  succeeded  in  showing  that  the  human 
will  comes  under  the  same  rule.  It  has  not 
succeeded  in  silencing  the  voice  within  us,  which 
claims  superiority  for  the  moral  over  the 
physical.  And  when  the  utmost  extent  of 
human  knowledge  is  compared  with  the  vast- 
ness  of  nature,  the  claim  to  extend  the  induc- 
tion from  generality  to  universality  is  seen  to 


VII.]      the  Claim  to  Supernatural  Power.      219 

be  utterly  untenable.  So  much  as  this,  indeed. 
Science  has  rendered  higlilj  probable,  that  the 
uniformity  of  nature  is  never  broken  except 
for  a  moral  purpose.  It  is  only  for  such  a 
purpose  that  the  will  is  ever  free.  It  is  only 
for  such  a  purpose  that  Revelation  has  ever 
claimed  to  be  superior  to  nature.  But  beyond 
this  Science  cannot  go.  Let  it  be  granted  that 
the  claim  for  freedom  of  the  will  has  been  often 
unduly  pushed  far  beyond  this  limit,  and  let 
it  be  granted  that  religions  professing  to  be 
revelations,  have  included  records  of  miracles 
which  had  no  moral  purpose.  This  does  not 
affect  the  general  conclusion  that  the  evidence 
for  uniformity  has  never  succeeded,  and  can 
never  succeed  in  showing,  that  the  God  who 
made  and  rules  the  universe  never  sets  aside 
a  physical  law  for  a  moral  purpose,  either  by 
working  through  the  human  will  or  by  direct 
action  on  external  nature. 

Science  will  continue  its  progress,  and  as  the 
thoughts  of  men  become  clearer  it  will  be  per- 
petually more  plainly  seen  that  nothing  in 
Revelation  really  interferes  with  that  progress. 
It  will  be  seen  that  devout  believers  can  observe, 


2  20     A ppare7it  Collision  of  Science  with     [beet. 

can  cross-question  nature,  can  look  for  uniformity 
and  find  it,  with  as  keen  an  eye,  with  as  active 
an  imagination,  with  as  sure  a  reasoning,  as 
those  who  deny  entirely  all  possibility  of 
miracles  and  reject  all  Bevelation  on  that  ac- 
count. The  belief  that  God  can  work  miracles 
and  has  worked  them,  has  never  yet  obstructed 
the  path  of  a  single  student  of  Science ;  nor 
has  any  student  who  repudiated  that  belief 
found  any  aid  in  his  study  from  that  repudiation. 
The  rush  of  Science  of  late  years  has  for  the  time 
made  many  men  fancy  that  Science  is  every- 
thing; and  believers  in  Eevelation  have  helped 
this  fancy  by  insisting  on  their  part  that  Revela- 
tion is  everything ;  but  such  waves  of  opinion, 
resting  really  on  feeling,  are  sure  to  pass  away, 
and  scientific  men  will  learn  that  there  are 
other  kinds  of  knowledge  besides  scientific 
knowledge,  as  believers  are  already  learning 
that  God  teaches  us  by  other  methods  besides 
the  method  of  Revelation.  The  students  of  the 
Bible  will  certainly  learn  that  Eevelation  need 
not  fear  the  discoveries  of  Science,  not  even  such 
doctrines  as  that  of  Evolution.  And  the  students 
of  nature  will  certainly  learn  that  Science  has 


Yli.]      the  Claim  to  Supernatural  Power,       221 

nothinof  to  fear  from  the  teachino^  of  Revelation, 
not  even  from  the  claim  to  miraculous  power. 
For  most  certainly  both  Science  and  E-evelation 
come  from  one  and  the  same  God;  *the  heavens 
declare  His  glory,  and  the  firmament  showeth 
His  handy  work  ;  His  law  is  perfect,  converting 
the  soul ;  His  testimony  is  sure,  making  wise  the 
simple/ 


LECTURE    VIIL 

THE  CONCLUSION  OF  THE  AEGUMENT. 

Uniformity  of  nature  not  demonstrated,  but  establislied, 
except  in  two  cases ;  the  interference  of  human  will  and 
of  Divine  Will.  The  exception  no  bar  to  the  progress  of 
Science.  Unity  to  be  found  not  in  the  physical  world,  but 
in  the  pliysical  and  moral  combined.  The  Moral  Law  rests 
on  itself.  Our  recognition  of  it  on  our  own  character  and 
choice.  But  we  expect  it  to  show  its  marks  in  the  physical 
world :  and  these  are  the  purpose  visible  in  Creation,  the 
effects  produced  by  Revelation.  Nevertheless  a  demand  for 
more  physical  evidence ;  but  the  physical  cannot  be  allowed 
to  overshadow  the  spiritual.  Dangers  to  believers  from 
leaning  this  way  :  superstition  ;  blindness  ;  stagnation.  The 
guarantee  for  spiritual  perceptiveness  :  to  take  Jesus  as  the 
Lord  of  the  conscience,  the  heart,  the  will. 


LECTUEE   VIII. 

THE  CONCLUSION  OF  THE  ARGUMENT. 

'  No  man  can  say  that  Jesus  is  the  Lord,  but  by  the 
Holy  Ghost.'     i  Cor.  xii.  3. 

TT  is  now  the  proper  time  to  review  the  argu- 
-*-  ment  of  these  Lectures,  and  to  endeavour 
to  trace,  if  possible,  the  source  of  the  estrange- 
ment which  just  at  present  separates  Eeligion 
and  Science. 

The  postulate  of  Science  is  admitted  on  all 
hands  to  be  the  uniformity  of  nature,  and  the 
proof  of  this  postulate  has  been  found  to  consist 
in  an  induction  from  the  facts  which  nature 
presents  and  our  senses  observe.  Uniformity  is 
quickly  noticed,  and  after  it  has  been  noticed 
for  some  time  it  is  instinctively  used  as  a  work- 
ing hypothesis.  So  used  it  accumulates  per- 
petually increasing  evidence  of  its  truth,  and  if 
we  except  two  great  classes  of  facts,  we  never 

Q 


2  26        The  Conclusion  of  the  Argument.      [Lect. 


find  any  instance  of  its  failure.  The  two  classes 
of  facts  which  a're  thus  excepted  are  the  acts  of 
the  human  will  and  the  miraculous  element  in 
Kevelation,  both  of  them  instances  of  one  thing, 
namely,  the  interference  of  the  moral  with  the 
physical.  To  complete  the  induction  and  to 
deprive  the  denial  of  universal  uniformity  of 
all  evidence  to  rest  on,  all  that  is  necessary  is 
to  get  rid  of  these  two  exceptions.  If  Science 
could  get  rid  of  these  exceptions,  though  it 
could  not  be  said  that  the  fundamental  postu- 
late was  demonstrated,  it  could  be  said  that  all 
the  evidence  was  in  its  favour  and  absolutely 
no  evidence  against  it.  And  although  scientific 
belief  would  then  still  rank  below  mathematical 
belief,  it  would  nevertheless  have  a  cogency 
quite  irresistible.  Science  would  not  thereby 
gain  in  power  of  progress,  in  practical  accept- 
ance, or  in  utility  to  man.  But  men  are  so 
constituted  that  completeness  gives  a  special 
kind  of  satisfaction  not  to  be  got  in  any  other 
way.  If  Science  could  but  be  complete  it  would 
seem  to  gain  in  dignity,  if  it  gained  in  nothing 
else.  And  it  is  easy  to  foster  a  kind  of  passion 
for   this   completeness   until   every  attempt  to 


VIIl]     The  Conclusion  of  the  Argument.        227 

question  it  is  resented.  I  have  seen  a  boy  first 
learning  mechanics  show  a  dislike  to  consider 
the  effect  of  friction  as  marring  the  symmetry 
and  beauty  of  mechanical  problems ;  too  vague, 
too  uncertain,  too  irregular  to  be  allowed  any 
entrance  into  a  system  which  is  so  rounded  and 
so  precise  without  it.  And  something  of  the 
same  temper  can  sometimes  be  seen  in  students 
of  Science  at  the  very  thought  of  there  being 
anything  in  the  world  not  under  the  dominion 
of  the  great  scientific  postulate.  The  world 
which  thus  contains  something  which  Science 
cannot  deal  with  is  pronounced  forthwith  to  be 
not  the  world  that  we  know,  not  the  world  with 
which  we  are  concerned  ;  a  conceivable  world 
if  we  choose  to  indulge  our  imagination  in  such 
dreams,  but  not  a  real  world  either  now  or  at 
any  time  before  or  after.  And  yet  the  freedom 
of  the  human  will  and  the  sense  which  cannot 
be  eradicated  of  the  responsibility  attaching  to 
all  human  conduct,  perpetually  retorts  that  this 
world  in  which  we  live  contains  an  element 
which  cannot  be  subdued  to  obedience  to  the 
scientific  law,  but  will  have  a  course  of  its  own. 

The  sense  of  responsibility  is  a  rock  which  no 

Q  2 


2  28        The  Conclusion  of  the  Argiimenl.      [Lect. 

demand  for  completeness  in  Science  can  crush. 
All  attempts  at  reconciling  the  mechanical 
firmness  of  an  unbroken  law  of  imiformity 
with  the  voice  within  that  cannot  be  silenced 
telling  us  that  we  must  answer  for  our  action, 
have  failed,  and  we  know  that  they  will  for 
ever  fail. 

If  indeed  it  could  be  said  that  the  progress 
of  Science  was  really  barred  by  this  inability 
to  make  the  induction  complete,  and  to  assert 
the  unbroken  uniformitv  of  all  nature  ;  if  it 
could  be  said  that  any  uncertainty  was  thus 
cast  over  scientific  conclusions,  or  any  false  or 
misleading  lights  thus  held  up  to  draw  in- 
quirers from  the  true  path,  it  would  undoubtedly 
become  a  duty  to  examine,  and  to  examine 
anxiously,  whether  indeed  it  could  be  true  that 
our  faculties  were  thus  hopelessly  at  variance 
with  each  other,  the  scientific  faculty  imposing 
on  us  one  belief,  and  the  spiritual  faculty  an- 
other, and  the  two  practically  irreconcil cable. 
But  there  is  no  reason  whatever  for  thinking 
this.  Newton's  investigations  were  unquestion- 
ably pursued,  as  all  true  scientific  investigations 
must  ever  be  pursued,  in  reliance  on  the  truth 


VIII.]      The  Conclusion  of  the  Argument.        229 

of  the  uniformity  of  nature,  and  yet  he  never 
felt  it  the  slightest  hindrance  to  his  progress 
that  he  always  tacitly  and  often  expressly 
acknowledged  that  God  had  reserved  to  Himself 
the  power  of  setting  this  uniformity  aside,  and 
indeed  believed  that  He  had  used  this  power. 
The  believer  who  asserts  the  universality  of  a 
law  except  when  God  works  a  miracle  to  set 
it  aside  is  certainly  at  no  real  disadvantage  in 
comparison  with  an  unbeliever  who  makes  the 
same  assertion  with  no  qualification  at  all.  It 
is  granted  on  all  hands  that  miracles  are,  and 
ever  have  been,  exceedingly  rare,  and  for  that 
reason  need  not  be  taken  into  account  in  the 
investigation  of  nature.  It  is  granted  that  the 
freedom  of  the  human  will  works  within  narrow 
limits,  and  verv  slowly  and  slio^htlv  affects  the 
great  mass  of  human  conduct  and  what  depends 
on  human  conduct.  And  Science  has  often  to 
deal  with  approximations  when  nothing  but 
approximations  can  be  obtained.  We  perpetually 
meet  in  nature  with  quantities  and  relations 
that  cannot  be  accurately  expressed  nor  accurately 
ascertained,  and  we  have  to  be  content  wdth 
approximations,  and  we  know  how  to  use  them 


2  30        The  Conclusion  of  the  A  rgtinient.      [Lect. 

in  Science.  Many  chemical  properties  can  only 
be  so  expressed ;  many  primary  facts,  such  as 
the  distances,  the  volumes,  the  weights  of  hea- 
venly bodies  ;  and  yet  the  approximations  serve 
our  purpose.  And  so  too,  if  there  be  a  reserve 
still  uncovered  by  the  scientific  postulate,  that 
will  not  in  any  degree  affect  our  investigation 
of  what  is  so  covered. 

In  short,  the  unity  of  all  things  which  Science 
is  for  ever  seeking  will  be  found  not  in  the 
physical  world  alone,  but  in  the  physical  and 
spiritual  united.  That  unity  embraces  both. 
And  the  uniformity  which  is  the  expression  of 
that  unity  is  not  a  uniformity  complete  in  na- 
ture, taken  by  itself,  but  complete  when  the 
two  worlds  are  taken  tog-ether.    And  this  Science 

o 

ought  to  recognise. 

Let  us  turn  from  the  physical  to  the  spi- 
ritual. 

The  voice  within  us  which  demands  our  ac- 
ceptance of  religion  makes  no  direct  appeal  to 
the  evidence  supplied  by  the  senses.  We  are 
called  on  to  believe  in  a  supreme  law  of  duty 
on  pain  of  being  lowered  before  our  own  con- 
sciences.     And   this   law    of  dut}'    goes  on  to 


VTll.]      The  Cone hcsion  of  the  Argument.        231 

assert  its  own  supremacy  over  all  things  that 
exist,  and  that  not  as  an  accidental  fact,  but 
as  inherent  in  its  essence.  And  this  supremacy 
cannot  be  other  than  an  accidental  fact  unless  it 
be  not  only  actual  but  intended.  And  intention 
implies  personality;  and  the  law  thus  shows 
itself  to  be  a  Supreme  Being,  claiming  our 
reverence,  and  asserting  Himself  to  be  the 
Creator,  the  Euler,  and  the  Judge  of  all  things 
that  are.  And  this  same  voice  within  us  asserts 
that  we  are  responsible  to  Him  for  all  our 
conduct,  and  are  capable  of  that  responsibility 
because  free  to  choose  what  that  conduct  shall 
be.  We  are  to  believe  not  because  the  truth  of 
this  voice  is  proved  independently  of  itself,  but 
simply  because  we  are  commanded.  Corrobora- 
tive evidence  may  be  looked  for  elsewhere,  but 
the  main,  the  primary  evidence  is  within  the 
souL 

Hence  the  strength  of  this  belief  depends  on 
ourselves  and  on  our  own  character.  To  every 
man  the  voice  speaks.  But  its  authority  is  felt 
in  proportion  to  the  spirituality  of  each  who 
hears.  Its  acceptance  is  bound  up  in  some  way 
with  our  own  wills.     How  far  it  is  a  matter  of 


232        The  Conchtsion  of  the  Argiwtent,      [Lect. 

choice  to  believe  or  to  disbelieve  it  is  not  pos- 
sible to  define.  The  will  lies  hidden  as  it  were 
behind  the  emotions,  the  affections,  the  nobler 
impulses.  The  conscience  shades  off  into  the 
other  faculties,  and  we  cannot  always  isolate  it 
from  the  rest.  But  though  it  be  impossible  to 
say  precisely  how  the  will  is  concerned  in  the 
spiritual  belief,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it 
always  takes  its  part  in  such  belief.  It  is  the 
keen  conscience,  it  is  the  will  that  can  be  moved 
to  its  depths  by  the  conscience,  that  grasp  most 
strongly  the  certainty  of  the  law  of  duty.  It  is 
the  man  with  the  strongest  and  noblest  aspira- 
tions, the  man  who  sees  the  beauty  of  humility, 
the  man  who  feels  most  strongly  the  deep  peace 
of  self-sacrifice,  that  is  the  man  who  finds  the 
voice  within  most  irresistible.  It  is  not  by  any 
means  always  the  man  who  lives  the  most  cor- 
rect life ;  correctness  of  life  may  be  due  to 
natural  and  not  to  spiritual  causes.  And  the 
man  whom  we  should  find  faultless  in  point  of 
morals  may  yet  be  wanting  in  spiritual  depth, 
and  not  have  as  yet,  and  perhaps  may  not  have 
to  the  last,  the  spiritual  faculty  strong  within 
him.     But  the  man,  even  if  he  have  many  and 


VIIT.]     The  Conclusion  of  the  Argument.       233 

grievous  faults,  who  nevertheless  is  keenly  sus- 
ceptible of  higher  things,  is  the  one  to  whom 
the  voice  w^ithin  speaks  with  authority  not  to 
be  gainsaid,  and  to  him  that  voice  is  final. 

It  is  this  fact  that  the  perception  of  things 
spiritual  varies  from  man  to  man,  and  depends 
on  character,  and  involves  action  of  the  will, 
that  makes  it  always  possible  to  represent  our 
knowledge  of  the  law  of  duty  as  in  itself 
standing  on  a  less  sure  foundation  than  our 
knowledge  of  scientific  truth.  Whether  a  man 
has  or  has  not  the  necessary  power  of  mind  to 
comprehend  scientific  reasoning  is  tested  with 
comparative  ease.  And  if  he  have  that  power, 
the  reasoninpf  is  certain  in  course  of  time  to  be 
understood,  and  when  it  is  understood  it  com- 
pels assent  so  long  as  it  keeps  within  its  own 
proper  domain.  But  the  perception  of  spiritual 
truth  depends  on  a  faculty  whose  power  or 
weakness  it  is  far  more  difficult  to  test ;  and  it 
involves  the  will  which  may  be  exerted  on  either 
side.  And  for  this  reason  men  sometimes  dis- 
miss this  truth  as  being  no  more  than  an 
imagination,  needed  by  some  men  to  satisfy  an 
emotional  nature,  but  having  no  substance  that 


234        The  Conclusion  of  the  Argument.     [Lect. 

can  be  brouo-ht  to  an  external  test.  The  be- 
liever  in  God  knows  that  the  truth  which  he 
holds  is  as  certain  as  the  axioms  of  mathe- 
matics ;  but  he  cannot  make  others  know  this 
whose  spiritual  faculty  is  not  awake ;  and  he  is 
liable  to  be  asked  for  proof  not  of  the  spiritual 
but  of  the  physical  kind. 

Now  this  much  must  be  acknowledged,  that 
we  cannot  but  expect  the  claim  to  supremacy 
over  all  things  to  show  itself  in  some  way  in 
the  creation  wdiich  has  come  from  Him  who 
makes  that  claim.  It  would,  no  doubt,  be  a 
serious  difficulty  if  things  physical  and  things 
spiritual  were  cut  off  from  one  another  by  an 
absolute  gulf;  if  we  were  required  to  believe 
that  God  had  created  and  now  ruled  everything, 
and  yet  we  could  trace  not  the  slightest  evi- 
dence of  His  hand  either  in  the  creation  or  in 
the  history  of  the  world. 

There  are  then  two  ways  in  which  we  are 
able  to  recognise  Him  even  in  this  world  of  phe- 
nomena. For  in  the  first  place,  the  creation 
in  its  order  and  its  beauty  and  its  marvellous 
adaptation  of  means  to  ends,  confirms  the  as- 
sertion of  the  spiritual  faculty  that  it  owes  its 


Ylll.]      The  Conchision  of  the  Argiime7it.       235 

origin  to  an  intelligent  and  benevolent  purpose, 
exhibited  in  the  form  in  which  purpose  is  always 
exhibited.  It  works  towards  ends  which  w^e 
should  expect  a  holy  and  benevolent  Creator  to 
have  in  view,  and  it  accomplishes  those  ends 
in  so  large  a  proportion  that,  making  allowance 
for  the  limited  range  of  our  knowledge,  the 
general  aim  of  the  whole  is  seen  with  sufficient 
clearness.  The  argument  is  not  strong  enough 
to  compel  assent  from  those  who  have  no  ears 
for  the  inward  spiritual  voice,  but  it  is  abund- 
antlv  sufficient  to  answer  those  w^ho  aro;ue  that 
there  cannot  be  a  Creator  because  they  cannot 
trace  His  action.  And  the  scientific  doctrine  of 
Evolution,  which  at  first  seemed  to  take  away 
the  force  of  this  argument,  is  found  on  ex- 
amination to  confirm  it  and  expand  it.  The 
doctrine  of  Evolution  shows  that  wdth  whatever 
design  the  w^orld  w^as  formed,  that  design  was 
entertained  at  the  very  beginning  and  impressed 
on  every  particle  of  created  matter,  and  that 
the  appearances  of  failure  are  not  only  to  be  ac- 
counted for  by  the  limitation  of  our  knowledge, 
but  also  by  the  fact  that  we  are  contemplating 
the  w^ork  before  it  has  been  completed. 


236        The  Conclusion  of  the  Argument.      [Lect. 

And  in  the  second  place,  while  the  creation, 
the  more  closely  it  is  examined  the  more  dis- 
tinctly  shows  the  marks  of  the  wisdom  and 
goodness  of  the  Creator,  so  the  history  of  the 
world  exhibits  in  the  Eevelation  made  to  man 
clear  proofs  of  that  heavenly  love  which  cor- 
responds to  the  character  of  Him  who  has  put 
love  at  the  head  of  all  the  requirements  of  His 
law.  The  Eevelation  given  to  us  has  undeni- 
ably made  a  real  mark  on  the  world.  It  has 
upheld  millions  of  men  in  a  holiness  of  life 
corresponding  in  a  very  real  degree  to  the 
holiness  required  by  the  law  of  duty.  It  has 
perpetually  more  and  more  cleared  up  the  true 
teaching  of  that  law.  It  is  still  continuing  the 
same  process,  and  generation  after  generation 
is  better  able  to  understand  that  teachino;.  Its 
fruits  have  been  a  harvest  of  saints  and  martyrs, 
some  known  and  reverenced,  some  quite  un- 
noticed. It  has  leavened  all  literature  and  all 
legislation.  It  has  changed  the  customs  of 
mankind  and  is  still  changing  them.  And  if  it 
be  replied  that  all  this  is  nothing  but  one  form 
of  the  development  of  humanity  and  shows  no 
proof  of  a  Divine  Huler,  we  have  a  right  to  ask 


VTII.]     The  Conclitsion  of  the  Argitment.       237 

what  then  could  be  the  source  of  such  a  de- 
velopment, and  how  is  it  that  so  great  a  power 
should  always  have  worked  in  the  name  of  God 
and  should  have  always  referred  everything  to 
His  command'?  That  fanaticism  should  plead 
God's  authority  without  any  right  to  do  so  is 
intellicfible.  But  is  it  intelligible  that  all  this 
truth  and  justice  and  purity  and  self-sacrificing 
love,  all  this  obedience  to  the  Supreme  Law, 
should  be  the  fruit  of  believing  a  lie  %  If  there 
be  a  God,  it  is  to  be  expected  that  He  would 
communicate  with  His  creatures  if  those  crea- 
tures were  capable  of  receiving  the  communi- 
cation ;  and  if  He  did  communicate  with  His 
creatures  it  is  to  be  expected  that  His  communi- 
cation would  be  such  as  we  find  in  the  Bible. 
The  purpose  of  the  Bible,  the  form  of  it,  the 
gradual  formation  of  it,  the  steadily-growing 
Revelation  contained  in  it,  these  harmonise  with 
the  moral  law  revealed  originally  in  the  con- 
science. And  the  efiect  which  the  Revelation 
has  produced  on  human  history  is  real  and 
great.  The  power  which  God's  Revelation  has 
exerted  on  the  world  is  an  undeniable  fact 
among  phenomena.     It  is  not  a  demonstration 


22,S        The  Conclusioji  of  the  Ai'gument,      [Lect. 

of  His  existence  ;  but  it  is  a  full  answer  to 
those  who  say,  *  If  God  made  and  rules  the 
world  why  do  we  find  no  signs  of  His  hand  in 
its  course  % ' 

And  thirdly,  this  Eevelation  has  not  merely 
taken  the  form  of  a  message  or  a  series  of 
messages,  but  has  culminated  in  the  appearance 
of  a  person  who  has  always  satisfied  and  still 
satisfies  the  conception  formed  by  our  spiritual 
faculty  of  a  human  representation  of  the  divine 
law.  Our  Lord's  life  is  that  law  translated 
into  human  action,  and  all  the  more  because 
human  faculties  had  not  first  framed  the  con- 
ception which  He  then  came  to  fulfil,  but  He 
exhibited  the  ideal,  and  our  conception  rose  as 
it  were  to  correspond  to  it.  And,  as  He  includes 
in  Himself  all  the  teaching,  so  does  He  give 
from  Himself  all  the  power  of  the  Eevelation 
which  He  came  to  crown.  And  every  true 
disciple  of  Christ  can  bear  witness  to  the  reality 
of  that  power  in  sustaining  the  soul. 

Thus  has  the  God,  whom  our  spiritual  faculty 
commands  us  to  worship  and  to  reverence, 
shown  Himself  in  the  world  of  phenomena. 
And  He  has  given  proofs  of  His  existence  and 


VIII.]     The  Conclusion  of  the  Argument.       239 

His  character  precisely  corresponding  to  the 
conception  which  He  has  enabled,  and  indeed 
commanded,  us  to  form  of  Him.  And  it  is 
because  the  proofs  that  He  has  given  are  of 
this  nature  that  we  are  tempted  to  ask  for  more 
proofs  of  a  different  kind. 

For  it  is  undeniable  that  believers  and  un- 
believers alike  are  perpetually  asking  for  proofs 
that  shall  have  more  of  the  scientific  and  less 
of  the  religious  character,  proofs  that  shall  more 
distinctly  appeal  to  the  senses.  Believers  in  all 
ages  have  longed  for  external  support  to  their 
faith ;  unbelievers  have  refused  to  believe  un- 
less supplied  with  more  physical  evidence.  Be- 
lievers shrink  from  being  thrown  inwards  on 
themselves;  they  fear  the  wavering  of  their 
own  faith ;  they  are  alarmed  at  the  prospect  of 
the  buttresses  of  their  belief  being  taken  from 
them.  They  find  it  easier  to  believe  the  spiritual 
evidence,  if  they  can  first  find  much  physical 
evidence.  They  wish  (to  use  the  Apostle's 
words)  to  walk  by  sight  and  not  by  faith. 
And  unbelievers  want  a  tangible  proof  that 
shall  compel  their  understanding  before  it  awakes 
their  conscience.      Thev  demand  a  Eevelation, 


240        The  Conclusion  of  the  A  rgumoit.     [Lect. 

not  only  confirmed  by  miracles  at  the  time,  but 
confirmed  again  and  again  by  repeated  miracles 
to  every  succeeding  generation.  They  want 
miracles  in  every  age  adapted  to  the  science  of 
the  age,  miracles  which  no  hardness  of  heart 
would  be  able  to  deny,  which  would  convince 
the  scientific  man  through  his  Science  inde- 
pendently of  his  having  any  will  to  make  holi- 
ness his  aim  when  he  had  been  convinced. 
This  kind  of  evidence  it  has  not  pleased  God 
to  give.  It  is  not  the  scientific  man  that  God 
seeks  as  such,  any  more  than  it  is  the  ignorant 
man  that  He  seeks  as  such.  And  the  proofs 
that  He  gives  are  plainly  in  all  cases  conditioned 
by  the  rule  that  the  spiritually  minded  shall 
most  easily  and  most  keenly  perceive  their  force. 
And,  as  far  as  unbelievers  are  concerned,  I  do 
not  see  that  more  need  be  said  except  to  tell 
them  that  this  rule  is  inflexible,  and  that  it  is 
by  another  way  that  they  must  look  to  find 
God,  and  not  by  the  wa}^  that  they  insist  on 
choosing.  But  believers  who  are  in  the  same 
case  need  to  be  warned  of  some  verv  real 
dangers  that  always  attend  a  faith  which  makes 
too  much  of  things  not  spiritual. 


VIII.]      The  Co7iclusion  of  the  Argumefit.       241 

For,  first,  there  is  a  real  and  great  danger  that 
the  spiritual  may  be  altogether  obscured  by 
the  literal  and  the  physical.  We  look  back 
with  astonishment  on  the  E-abbinical  interpre- 
tations of  the  Old  Testament,  and  all  the  more 
because  of  the  really  great  and  true  thoughts 
that  are  sometimes  to  be  fomid  in  the  midst  of 
their  fanciful  conceits.  We  can  trace  the  mis- 
chief they  did  to  true  Religion  by  the  perverted 
reverence  with  which  they  regarded  the  words 
and  even  the  letters,  and  the  very  shapes 
of  the  letters,  in  which  their  sacred  books  were 
written.  Their  perversions  of  the  law  of  God, 
their  subtle  refinements  of  interpretation,  their 
trivial  conceits,  their  false  and  misleading  com- 
ments and  inferences,  all  certainly  tended  to  en- 
courage the  hypocrisy  which  our  Lord  rebuked, 
and  against  which  St.  Paul  contended.  But  we 
still  see  something  of  the  same  spirit  in  the 
attempt  to  maintain  a  verbal  and  even  literal 
inspiration  of  the  whole  Bible,  filhng  it  not 
with  the  breath  of  a  Divine  Spirit,  but  with 
minute  details  of  doctrine  and  precept  often 
questionable,  and,  whenever  separated  from  the 
principles  of  the  eternal  law,  valueless  or  even 

R 


242        The  Conchtsion  of  the  Argument.      [Lect. 

mischievous.  God's  Word,  instead  of  leading 
us  to  Him,  is  made  to  stand  between  and  hide 
His  face. 

But,  secondly,  there  is  a  serious  risk  that  if 
the  mind  be  fastened  on  things  external  in 
some  way  connected  with,  but  yet  distinct  from 
the  substance  of  Revelation,  it  may  turn  out 
that  these  external  things  cannot  hold  the 
ground  on  which  they  have  been  placed.  They 
have  to  be  given  up  by  force  at  last,  when  they 
ought  to  have  been  given  up  long  before.  And 
when  given  up  they  too  often  tear  away  with 
them  part  of  the  strength  of  that  faith  of  which 
they  had  previously  been  not  only  the  buttress 
outside  but  a  part  of  the  living  framework.  It 
is  distinctly  the  fault  of  religious,  not  of  scientific 
men,  that  there  was  once  a  great  contest  be- 
tween the  Bible  and  Astronomy,  that  there  has 
since  been  a  great  contest  between  the  .Bible 
and  Geology,  that  there  is  still  a  great  contest 
between  the  Bible  and  Evolution.  In  no  one 
of  these  cases  was  the  Bevelation  contained  in 
the  Bible  in  danger,  but  only  the  interpretation 
commonly  put  on  the  Bible.  It  is  easy  long 
afterwards  to  condemn  the  opponents  of  Galileo 


VTII.]      The  Conclusion  of  the  Alignment.        243 

and  speak  of  their  treatment  of  him  and  his 
teaching  as  fanaticism  and  bigotry;  and  such 
condemnation  has  not  unfrequently  been  heard 
from  the  very  lips  that  nevertheless  denounced 
the  teaching  of  the  geologists.  But  in  all  these 
cases  the  principle  has  been  the  same,  and 
believers  have  insisted  that  the  Bible  itself  was 
gone  unless  their  interpretation  of  it  was  up- 
held. And  the  mischief  is  double.  For  many 
believers,  and  more  especially  unlearned  be- 
lievers, instead  of  gently  helping  one  another 
to  form  the  necessarv  modification  of  their  view 
of  the  Bible  teaching,  instead  of  endeavouring 
to  find  the  way  out  of  the  perplexity  and  to 
disentangle  the  true  spiritual  lesson  from  the 
accessories  which  are  no  part  of  itself,  insisted 
that  it  must  be  all  or  nothing,  and  prepared 
for  themselves  a  very  severe  trial.  There  was 
no  doctrine  involved  whatever;  there  was  no- 
thmg  at  stake  on  which  the  spiritual  life  de- 
pended. The  duty  to  be  patient,  to  enquire 
carefully,  to  study  the  other  side,  to  wait  for 
light,  was  as  plain  as  any  duty  could  be.  But  all 
this  was  forgotten  in  a  somewhat  unreasoning 

impulse  to  resist  an  assault  on  the  faith.     And 

R  2 


244        The  Conchisioit  of  the  Argument,     [Lect. 


there   cannot   be    a   doubt    that    on    all    these 
occasions   manv  believers   have   been   seriouslv 
shaken  by  slowly  finding  out  that  the  position 
they  have  taken  is  untenable.     When  men  have 
to  give  up  in  such  circumstances  they  generally 
give  up  far  more  than  they  need,  and  in  some 
cases  an  unreasonable  resistance  has  been  fol- 
lowed  by   an   equally    unreasonable   surrender. 
And    while    believers    have    thus    prepared    a 
stumblingblock   for  themselves  they  have  put 
quite  as  great  a  stumblingblock  before  others. 
For  students   of  Science,   informed  bv  instant 
voices  all  around  that  they  must  choose  between 
their  Science  and  the  Bible,  knowing  as  they 
did  that  their  Science  was  true,  and  supposing 
that  the  lovers  and  defenders  of  the  Bible  best 
knew  what  its  teaching  was,  had  no  choice  as 
honest  men  but  to    hold   the  truth   as  far  as 
they   possessed   it   and   to  give  up   the   Bible 
in  order  to  maintain  their   Science.     It  was  a 
grievous  injury  inflicted  on  them  ;  and  though 
some  among  them  might  deserve  no  sympathy, 
there  were  some  whom  it  was  a  great  loss  to 
lose. 

But   in   the    third   place,  the    result    of  this 


VIII.]      The  Conclusion  of  the  Argument.       245 

clinging  to  externals  is  to  shut  out  Science  and 
all  its  correlative  branches  of  knowledo:e  from 
their  proper  office  of  making  perpetually  clearer 
the  true  and  full  meaning  of  the  Kevelation 
itself.  It  is  intended  that  Religion  should  use 
the  aid  of  Science  in  clearing  her  own  con- 
ceptions. It  is  intended  that  as  men  advance 
in  knowledge  of  God's  works  and  in  power 
of  handling  that  knowledge,  they  should  find 
themselves  better  able  to  interpret  the  message 
wdiich  they  have  received  from  their  Father  in 
Heaven.  Our  knowledge  of  the  true  meaning  of 
the  Bible  has  gained,  and  it  was  intended  that 
it  should  gain,  by  the  increase  of  other  know- 
ledge. Science  makes  clearer  than  anything 
else  could  have  made  it  the  higher  level  on 
which  the  Bible  puts  what  is  spiritual  over 
what  is  material.  I  do  not  hesitate  to  ascribe 
to  Science  a  clearer  knowledge  of  the  true  in- 
terpretation of  the  first  chapter- of  Genesis,  and 
to  scientific  liistory  a  truer  knowledge  of  the 
great  historical  prophets.  The  advance  of  se- 
cular studies,  as  they  are  called,  clears  up  much 
in  the  Psalms,  and  much  in  the  other  poetical 
Books  of  Scripture.     I  cannot  doubt  that  this 

R  ^ 


246        The  Conclusion  of  the  Argument.     [Lect. 

was  intended  from  the  beginning,  and  that  as 
Science  has  already  done  genuine  service  to 
Religion  in  this  way,  so  will  it  do  still  better 
service  with  process  of  time. 

On  this  side  also,  as  on  the  scientific  side,  the 
teaching  of  the  spiritual  faculty  and  the  teaching 
of  Eevelation  indicate  that  the  physical  and  the 
spiritual  worlds  are  one  whole,  and  that  neither 
is  complete  without  the  other.  Science  enters 
into  Religion,  and  is  its  counterpart,  and  has  its 
share  to  take  in  the  conduct  of  life  and  in  the 
formation  of  opinion.  And  the  believer  is  bound 
to  recognise  its  value  and  make  use  of  its 
services. 

In  conclusion,  it  is  plain  that  the  antagonism 
between  Science  and  Religion  arises  much  more 
from  a  difference  of  spirit  and  temper  in  the 
students  of  each  than  from  any  inherent  op- 
position between  the  two.  The  man  of  Science 
is  inclined  to  shut  out  from  consideration  a 
whole  body  of  evidence,  the  moral  and  spiritual ; 
the  believer  is  inclined  to  shut  out  the  physical. 
And  each,  from  long  looking  at  that  evi- 
dence alone  which  properly  belongs  to  his  own 
subject,    is   inclined  to   hold    the    other   cheap, 


VIII.]      The  Conclusion  of  the  Argument.       247 

and  to  cliaroe  on  those  who  adduce  it  either 
blindness  of  understanding  or  wilful  refusal  to 
accept  the  truth.  And  when  such  a  conflict 
arises  it  is  the  higher  and  not  the  lower,  it  is 
Faith  and  not  Science  that  is  likely  to  suffer. 
For  the  physical  evidence  is  tangible,  and  the 
perception  of  it  not  much  affected  by  the  cha- 
racter of  the  man  who  studies  it ;  the  spiritual 
evidence  stands  unshaken  in  itself,  but  it  is  hid 
from  eyes  that  have  no  spiritual  perception, 
and  that  perception  necessarily  varies  with  the 
man. 

By  what  means  then  can  a  man  keep  his 
spiritual  perception  in  full  activity  1  And  is 
there  any  test  by  which  a  man  may  know 
whether  his  spiritual  faculty  is  in  contact  with 
the  source  of  all  spiritual  life  and  is  deriving 
from  that  source  the  full  flow  of  spiritual 
power'?  Eevelation,  if  it  tells  us  anything, 
ought  to  tell  us  this.  And  the  answer  which 
Eevelation  makes  is  expressed  in  the  words  of 
St.  Paul,  '  No  man  can  say  that  Jesus  is  the 
Lord,  but  by  the  Holy  Ghost.'  This  doctrine 
runs  through  the  New  Testament,  and  it  im- 
plies that  one  main  purpose  of  our  Lord's  ap- 


248        The  Conclusion  of  the  Argument.      [Lect. 


pearance  among  men  was  to  give  them  in  His 
life,  His  character,  His  example,  His  teaching, 
at  once  a  touchstone  by  which  they  could  al- 
ways try  their  own  spirits,  and  judge  of  the  real 
condition  of  their  own  spiritual  faculty,  and 
also  a  vivid  presentation  of  the  supreme  spiritual 
law  by  which  they  could  for  ever  more  and 
more  elevate  and  purify  and  strengthen  their 
own  spiritual  power  and  knowledge. 

Let  a  man  study  the  Jesus  of  the  Gospels. 
Let  him  put  before  his  conscience  the  teaching 
that  Jesus  gives ;  the  picture  drawn  of  our 
Father  in  Heaven  whose  holiness  cannot  allow 
a  stain  upon  a  single  soul,  and  whose  tender- 
ness cannot  endure  that  a  single  soul  should 
perish  ;  Who  ruleth  all  the  universe,  and  yet 
without  whom  not  a  sparrow  falleth  to  the 
ground ;  the  picture  drawn  of  the  ideal  human 
hfe,  the  humility,  the  hunger  and  thirst  after 
righteousness,  the  utter  self-sacrifice,  the  purity; 
the  picture  drawn  of  human  need,  the  help- 
lessness, the  hopelessness  of  man  without  God. 
Let  him  ponder  on  all  this  and  on  the  many 
touching  expressions,  the  truth,  the  depth,  the 
force,  the  superhuman  sweetness  and  gentleness 


VIII.]     The  Conchision  of  the  A7'gume7it.        249 

with  which  all  is  presented.  And  if  his  con- 
science bows  before  it,  and  can  say  without 
reserve  and  in  unalloyed  sincerity,  '  This  is  my 
Lord ;  He  shall  be  my  teacher  ;  here  I  recognise 
the  fulness  of  the  eternal  law ;  at  His  feet  will 
I  henceforth  sit  and  learn  ;  through  Him  will 
I  drink  of  the  well-springs  of  eternal  truth  ; 
His  voice  will  I  trust  -to  the  very  utmost ;' 
then  may  that  man  be  sure  that  his  conscience 
is  in  contact  with  the  Father  of  spirits,  and  that 
his  study  will  guide  him  into  fuller  and  clearer 
knowledge,  and  more  certain  conviction  that  he 
is  grasping  the  truth  of  God. 

Let  a  man  put  before  his  lieart  our  Lords 
own  character.  Let  him  think  of  the  life 
of  privation  without  complaint,  of  service 
to  His  kind  without  a  thought  of  self;  of 
His  unfailing  sympathy  with  the  unhappy,  of 
His  tenderness  to  the  penitent ;  of  His  royal 
simplicity  and  humility;  of  His  unwearied  per- 
severance in  the  face  of  angry  opposition  ;  of 
His  deep  affection  for  the  friends  of  His  choice 
even  when  they  deserted  Him  in  His  hour  of 
darkness ;  of  His  death  on  the  Cross  and  the 
unearthly  love  that  breathed  in  every  word  He 


250        The  Conchision  of  the  Argumejit.      [Lect. 

uttered  and  everything  He  did.  Let  him  read 
all  this  many  times  ;  and  if  his  heart  goes  out 
to  the  Man  whom  he  is  thus  beholding,  if  he 
can  say  with  all  his  soul,  This  is  my  Lord  ;  here 
is  the  supreme  object  of  my  affection  ;  Him  will 
I  love  with  all  my  strength  ;  from  Him  I  will 
never,  if  I  can  help  it,  let  my  heart  swerve ;  no 
other  do  I  know  more  worthy  to  be  loved  ;  no 
other  will  I  keep  more  steadily  before  my  eyes ; 
no  other  will  I  more  earnestly  desire  to  imitate ; 
no  other  shall  be  my  example^  my  trust,  my 
strength,  my  Saviour ;  if  a  man  can  say  this,  it 
is  certain  that  his  heart  is  touched  by  God,  and 
the  heavenly  fire  is  kindled  in  his  soul. 

Let  a  man  put  before  his  ivill  the  Lords 
commands ;  the  aims,  the  self-restraints,  the 
aspirations  that  the  Lord  required  in  His  dis- 
ciples. Let  him  ponder  on  the  call  to  heavenly 
courage  in  spite  of  all  that  earth  can  inflict 
or  can  take  away;  the  call  to  take  up  the 
Cross  and  follow  Him  that  was  crucified  ;  the 
warnings  and  the  promises,  the  precepts  and 
the  prohibitions ;  let  him  think  of  the  Leader 
who  never  flinched,  of  the  Lawgiver  who  outdid 
His  own  law;  let  him  think  on  the  nobleness 


VIII.]     The  Co7ichision  of  the  Argument,       251 

of  the  aims  to  which  He  pointed  ;  of  the  pro- 
mise of  inward  peace  made  to  those  who 
sacrificed  themselves,  made  by  our  Lord  and 
re-echoed  from  the  very  depths  of  our  spiritual 
being ;  let  him  think  of  the  sure  help  promised  in 
return  for  absolute  trust,  tried  by  millions  of 
saints  and  never  yet  known  to  fail.  Let  a  man 
put  this  before  his  will,  and  if  he  can  say  with 
all  his  soul.  This  is  my  Lord  ;  here  I  recognise 
Him  who  has  a  right  to  my  absolute  obedience  : 
here  is  the  Master  that  I  mean  to  serve  and 
follow ;  and  in  spite  of  my  own  weakness  and 
blindness,  in  spite  of  my  sins,  in  spite  of 
stumbling  and  weariness  of  resolution,  in  spite 
of  temptations  and  in  spite  of  falls,  I  will  not 
let  my  eyes  swerve,  nor  my  purpose  quit  my 
will ;  through  death  itself  I  will  obey  my  Lord 
and  trust  to  Him  to  carry  me  through  whatever 
comes  ;  that  man  most  certainly  is  moving  in 
the  strength  of  God,  and  the  power  of  the 
Eternal  Spirit  lives  within  him. 

Our  Lord  is  the  crown,  nay,  the  very  sub- 
stance of  all  Revelation.  If  He  cannot  convince 
the  soul,  no  other  can.  The  believer  stakes  all 
faith  on  His  truth  ;  all  hope  on  His  power.     If 


252        The  Conclusion  of  the  Argttfnejit. 

the  man  of  Science  would  learn  what  it  is  that 
makes  believers  so  sure  of  what  they  hold,  he 
must  study  with  an  open  heart  the  Jesus  of  the 
Gospels ;  if  the  believer  seeks  to  keep  his  faith 
steady  in  the  presence  of  so  many  and  some- 
times so  violent  storms  of  disputation,  he  will 
read  of,  ponder  on,  pray  to,  the  Lord  Jesus 
Christ. 


MACMILLAN    &    CO.'S    PUBLICATIONS. 


By  His  Grace  The  ARCHBISHOP   OF   CANTERBURY. 

Boy  Life  :  its  Trial,  its  Strength,  its  Fulness.  Sundays  in  Wel- 
lington College,  1859-1873.  Three  Books.  By  E.  W.  Benson,  D.  D., 
formerly  Master,  Archbishop  (of  Canterbury.  A  New  Edition,  with  Addi- 
tions.    i2mo.     $1.75. 


By  J.   B.   LIGHTFOOT,   D.D.,   Bishop  of  Durham.- 

St.  Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Galatians.  A  Revised  Text,  with  Intro- 
duction, Notes,  and  Dissertations.     Seventh  Edition,  revised.     8vo.     $4.00. 

St.  Paul's  Epistle  to  the  Philippians.  A  Revised  Text,  with  In- 
troduction, Notes,  and  Dissertations.   Seventh  Edition,  revised.    Svo.    $4.00. 

St.  Clement  of  Rome.     The  Two  Epistles  to  the  Corinthians. 

A  Revised  Text,  with  Introduction  and  Notes.     Svo. 

St.  Clement  of  Rome.  An  Appendix,  containing  the  newly-recov- 
ered portions.     With  Introductions,  Notes,  and  Translations      Svo. 

St.  Paul's  Epistles  to  the  Colossians  and  to  Philemon.  A  Re- 
vised Text,  with  Introductions,  Notes,  and  Dissertations.  Sixth  Edition, 
revised.     Svo.     $4.00. 


By  BROOKE  FOSS  WESTCOTT,  D.D.,  Regius  Professor  of 
Divinity  in  the  University  of  Cambridge,  Canon  of  Westminster. 

A  General  Survey  of  the  History  of  the  Canon  of  the  New 

TESTAMENT   DURING   THE    EIRST    EOUR  CENTURIES.      Fifth 
Edition,  revised,  with  Preface  on  "  Supernatural  Religion."     i2mo.     $3.00. 

Introduction  to  the  Study  of  the  Four  Gospels.     Sixth  Edition. 

i2mo.     $3.00.     American  Edition.     $2.25. 

The  Gospel  of  the  Resurrection.      Thoughts  on  its  Relation  to 

Reas(jn  and  History.      Fourth  Edition,  revised.     i2mo.     $1.75. 

The  Bible  in  the  Church.  A  Popular  Account  of  the  Collection 
and  Reception  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  in  the  Christian  Churches.  Seventh 
Edition.     iBmo.     $1.25. 

A  General  View  of  the  History  of  the  English  Bible.     Second 

Edition.      i2nio. 

The  Christian  Life,  Manifold  and  One.  Six  Sermons  preached 
in  Peterborough  Cathedral.     i2mo.     go  cents. 

On  the  Religious  Office  of  the  Universities.     Sermons.      i2mo. 

$1.50. 


MACMILLAN    &   CO.,    NEW   YORK. 


MACMILLAN  &  CO.'S  PUBLICATIONS. 


By  BROOKE    FOSS   WESTCOTT,  D.D.  — Gw//;///.v/. 
The  Revelation  of  the  Risen  Lord.      Second    Edition.      i2mo. 

he    Revelation  of  the  Father.     Short  Lectures  on  the  Titles  of 

the  Lord  in  the   (lospel  of  St.  John.     i2mo.     $1.50. 

The  Historic  Faith.     Short  Lectures  on  the  Apostles'  Creed.      Sec- 
ond Edition.     i2mo.     $1.75. 

The  Epistles  of  St.  John.     The  Oreek  Text,  with  Notes  and  Es- 
says.   8vo.     $3.50. 


The  New  Testament  in  the  Original  Greek,     The  Text  Revised 

by  B.  F.  Westcott,  D  D.,  Regius  Professor  of  Divinity,  Canon  of  West- 
minster, and  F.  J.  A.  Hokt,  D.D.,  Hulsean  Professor  of  Divinity,  Fellow 
of  Emmanuel  College,  Cambridge  ;  late  Fellows  of  Trinity  College,  Cam- 
bridge. 2  vols.  i2mo.  Vol.  I.  Text.  Vol.  II.  The  Introduction  and 
Appendix. 


By  FREDERICK   TEMPLE,   D.D.,   Bishop  of  Exeter. 

Sermons    Preached   in   Rugby    Chapel.     Series   One  to  Three. 

Extra  fcap.     8vo.     Each,  $1.50. 

The   Origin  and  Nature  of  Scientific  Belief  and  Other  Lec- 

TURES.     Preached  before  the  University  of  Oxford.     Being  the  Bampton 
Lectures,  1884.     i2mo. 


By  R.   CHENEVIX    TRENCH,  D.D.,   Archbishop  of  Dublin. 

Notes  on  the  Parables  of  our  Lord.      Fourteenth  Edition,  revised. 

8vo.     $3.50. 

Notes  on  the  Miracles  of  our  Lord.      Eleventh  Edition,  revised. 

Svo.     $3.50. 

Synonyms  of   the  New  Testament.      Tenth   Edition,    enlarged. 

8vo.     $3.50. 

Sermons  Preached  for  the  most  part  in  Ireland.      Svo.     !|3.oo. 
Commentary  on  the  Epistles  to   the  Seven  Churches  in  Asia. 

Fourth  Edition,  revised.     Svo.     $2.25. 

Sacred  Latin  Poetry.     Chiefly  Lyrical.      Selected  and  arranged  for 

Use.     Third  Edition,  corrected  and  improved.     Fcap.     8vo.     $2.50. 

Studies  in  the  Gospels.     Fourth  Edition,  revised.      Svo.      JI3.00. 
The    Sermon    on   the    Mount.       An   Exposition   drawn   from   the' 

Writings  of  St.  Augustine,  with  an  Essay  on  his  merits  as  an    Interpreter  of 
Holy  Scripture.     Fourth  Edition,  enlarged.     Svo.     $3.00. 

Shipwrecks  of  Faith.      Three  Sermons  preached  before   the  Uni- 
versity of  Cambridge  in  May,  1867.     Fcap.     Svo.     90  cents. 

The  Hulsean  Lectures  for  1845   and   1846.     Fifth  Edition,  re- 
vised.    8vo.     $2.25. 


MACMILLAN   &   CO.,  NEW   YORK. 


MACMILLAN    &    CO.'S    PUBLICATIONS. 


By  CHARLES  J.   VAUGHAN,    D.D.,  Dean  of  Llandaff, 
Master  of  the  Temple. 

The  Four  Epistles  of  St.  Paul's  First  ImprisonmeTit  at  Rome : 

Philippians,    Ephesians,   Colossians,  Philemon.       A   literal    rendering',    with 
Paraphrase  and  Notes  for  English  readers.     lamo. 

Notes  for   Lectures   on    Confirmation.     With    suitable    Prayers. 

Tenth  Edition.     Fcap.  8vo.     25  cents. 
Memorials  of  Harrow  Sundays.     Sermons  preached   in  Harrow 

School  Chapel.     New  Edition.      i2mo.     I2.75. 

Lectures    on   the   Epistle    to    the   Philippians.      New    Edition. 

i2mo.     $2.00. 

Temple  Sermons.     i2mo.     ^2.'jk,. 

Authorised  or  Revised?     Sermons  on  some  of  the  Texts  in  which 

the  Revised  Version  differs  from  the  Authorised.      i2mo.     $2.25. 

"  My  Son  give  me  thine  Heart."     Sermons  preached  before  the 

Universities  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  (1876-78).     Extra  fcap.  8vo.     $1.50. 

The  Lord's  Prayer.     Second  Edition.     Extra  fcap.  8vo.     $1.25. 
Heroes  of  Faith.      Lectures  on  Hebrews  xi.      Extra  fcap.      8vo. 

§i-75- 

The  Young  Life  Equipping  Itself  for  God's  Service.     Sermons 

before  the  University  of  Cambridge.    Sixth  Edition.     Extra  fcap.  8vo.     $1.00. 
Counsels   for  Young   Students.     Three  Sermons  preached  before 

the  University  of  Cambridge  at  the  Opening  of  the  Academical  Year  (1870 

71).     Fcap.  8vo.     75  cents. 
The  Church  of  the    First    Days.     Lectures  on  the  Acts  of  the 

Apostles. 
Series  1.  The  Church  of  Jerusalem.     Third  Edition.     $1.00. 
II.  The  Church  of  the  Gentiles.     Third  Edition.     $1.00. 
III.   The  Church  of  the  World.     Third  Edition.     Fcap.  8vo.     $1.00. 

Life's  Work    and    God's   Discipline.      Three    Sermons.       Third 

Edition.     Extra  fcap.  8vo.     90  cents. 

Lessons  of  Life  and  Godliness.  A  Selection  of  Sermons  preached 
in  the  Parish  Church  of  Doncaster.  Fourth  and  Cheaper  Edition.  Fcap. 
8vo.     $1.00. 

By  the  Very  Rev.  R.  W.  CHURCH,  M.A.,  Dean  of  St.  Paul's. 
On  Some  Influences  of  Christianity  upon  National  Character. 

Three   Lectures  delivered  in    St.   Paul's  Cathedral,  February,  1873.     i2mo. 
S1.25. 
The  Sacred  Poetry  of  Early  Religions.     Two  Lectures   in  St. 

Paul's  Cathedral.     Second  Edition.     i8mo.     35  cents. 

St.  Anselm.     New  Edition.      i2mo.      fi.75. 

Human  Life   and  Its  Conditions.     Sermons  preached  before  the 

University  of  Oxford  in  1876-1878,  with   Three  Ordination  Sermons.     i2mo. 
$1.50. 

Dante:  An  Essay.  To  which  is  added  a  Translation  of  "  De 
Monarchic."     By  F.  J.  Church.     i2mo.     $i.75' 


MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  NEW  YORK. 


MACMILLAN    &    CO.'S    PUBLICATIONS. 


By  the  Very  Rev.  R.  W.  CHURCH,  ^.K.  — Continued. 

The  Gifts  of  Civilisation,  and  other  Sermons  and  Lectures  deliv- 
ered at  Oxford  and  in  St.  Paul's  Cathedral.     New  Edition.     i2mo.     $2.25. 


By   the   Venerable   ARCHDEACON   FARRAR,    D.D.,    F^.R.S., 
Canon  of  Westminster,  late  Head  Master  of  Marlborough  College. 

The  Fall  of  Man  and  other  Sermons.     Fourth  Edition.      i2mo. 

$1.75- 

The  Witness  of  History  to  Christ.     Being  the  Hulsean  Lectures 

for  1870.     Sixth  Edition.     i2mo.     $1.50. 
Seekers  after  God.     The  Lives  of  Seneca,  Epictetus,  and  Marcus 

Aurelius.     New  Edition.     Illustrated.     Crown  8vo.     $1.50. 
The  Silence  and  Voices  of  God.     University  and  other  Sermons. 

Sixth  Edition.     i2mo.     $1.25. 
In   the   Days    of    thy    Youth.     Sermons    on    Practical    Subjects, 

preached   at   Marlborough    College    from   1871  to   1876.      Seventh    Edition. 

i2mo.     $i.75- 
Eternal  Hope.     Five    Sermons    preached    in  Westminster  Abbey, 

November  and  December,  1877.     i2mo.     Twenty-second  Thousand.     $1.75. 
Saintly  Workers.    Five  Lenten  Lectures,  delivered  at  St.  Andrew's, 

Holborn,  March  and  April,  1878.     Third  Edition.     i2mo.     $1.25. 
Ephphatha;    or,    The   Amelioration   of  the    World.      Sermons 

preached  at  Westminster  Abbey,  with  two  Sermons  at  St.  Margaret's,  West- 
minster, on  the  opening  of  Parliament.     i2mo.     $1.50. 

Mercy  and  Judgment.     A  few   Last  Words  on  Christian  Escha- 
tology,  with  reference  to  Dr.  Pusey's  '"  What  is  of  Faith  ?  "     Second  Edition. 


^2.25. 


The  Scientific  Obstacles  to  Christian  Belief.  Being  the  Boyle 
Lectures  for  1884.  By  G.  H.  Curteis,  Canon  of  Lichfield,  and  Professor 
of  Divinity  in  King's  College,  London.     i2mo. 

The  Common  Tradition  of  the  Four  Gospels,  in  the  Text  of  the 

REVISED  VERSION.     By  Edward  A.  Abbott,  D.D.,  and  W.  G.  Rush- 
BROOKE,  M.A.     i2mo.     $1.25. 
Sermons  Preached  Mainly  to  Country  Congregations.     By  the 

late   Rev.  Edward  Baines,   M.A.      Edited  with    Preface   and  Memoir,  by 
Edward  Barry,  D.D.     i2mo.     $2.25. 
An  Introduction   to   the   Philosophy   of  Religion.     By  John 

Caird,  D.D.,  Principal  and  Vice-Chancellor  of  the  University  of  Glasgow. 
Svo.     ^3.00. 

The  Resurrection  of  Our  liord.     By  William  Milligan,   D.D., 

Professor  of  Divinity  and  Biblical  Criticism  in  the  University  of  Aberdeen. 
New  Edition.     i2mo.     $1.75. 

Sermons  Preached  in  Clifton  College  Chapel,  1879-1883.     By 

the  Rev.  J.  M.  Wilson,  M.A.     i2mo.     $2,00. 

Sermons  Preached  in  the  Chapel  of  Harrow  School  and  Else- 

WHERE.     By  the  late  Rev.  T.  H.  Steel,  M.A.     With  a  Prefatory  Memoir 
by  Henry  Nettleshih.     i2mo.     112.25. 


MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  NEW  YORK. 


MACMILLAN   &   CO.'S    PUBLICATIONS. 


By  FREDERICK  DENISON  MAURICE,   M.A. 

The  Unity  of  the  New  Testament.  A  Synopsis  of  the  first  Three 
Gospels,  and  of  the  Epistles  of  St.  James,  St.  Jude,  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul. 
Second  Edition.     Two  volumes,  lamo.     $3.50. 

The  Kingdom  of  Christ;  or,  Hints  to  a  Quaker  respecting  the 

PRINCIPLES,    CONSTITUTION     AND     ORDINANCES    OF    THE 
CATHOLIC  CHURCH.     Third  Edition.     Two  volumes,  i2mo.     $4.00. 

The  Gespel  of  the  Kingdom  of  Heaven.     A  Series  of  Lectures 

on  the  Gospel  of  St.  Luke.     New  Edition.     r2mo.     $2.00. 

The  Gospel  of  St.  John.     A  Series  of  Discourses.      Sixth  Edition. 

i2mo.     $2.oo. 

The  Doctrine  of  Sacrifice  Deduced  from  the  Scriptures.     New 

Edition.     i2mo.     $2.00. 

The  Prophets  and  Kings  of  the  Old  Testament.    Fourth  Edition. 

T2mo.     $2.00. 

The  Epistles  of  St.  John.  A  Series  of  Lectures  on  Christian 
Ethics.     Second  Edition.     i2mo.     $2.00. 

Theological  Essays.     Fourth  Edition,  with  New  Preface.      i2mo. 

$2.00. 

Moral  and  Metaphysical  Philosophy.  Vol.  i. — Ancient  Phil- 
osophy and  the  Eirst  to  the  Thirteenth  Centuries.  Vol.  2. — Fourteenth  Cen- 
tury and  the  P'rench  Revolution,  with  a  Glimpse  into  the  Nineteenth  Cen- 
tury.    Third  Edition.     Two  volumes,  8vo.     $6.00. 

What  is  Revelation?  A  Series  of  Sermons  on  the  Epiphany;  to 
which  are  added  Letters  to  a  Theological  Student  on  the  Bampton  Lectures 
of  Mr.  Mansel.     i2mo.     Reprinting. 

Sequel  to  the  Inquiry,  "What  is  Revelation?"  Letters  in  Reply 
to  Mr.  Mansel's  Examination  of  "  Strictures  on  the  Bampton  Lectures." 
i2mo.     $1.50. 

Expository  Sermons  on  the  Prayer  Book,  considered  especially 
in  reference  to  the  Romish  System  ;  and  on  the  Lord's  Prayer.    lamo.    $2.00. 

Social  Morality.     Twenty-one  Lectures  delivered  in  the  University 

of  Cambridge.     Second  Edition.     i2mo.     $2.00. 

Sermons    Preached   in   Country   Churches.     Second    Edition. 

I.' mo.     $2.00. 


MACMILLAN    &    CO.,    NEW    YORK. 


MACMILLAN   &  CO.'S    PUBLICATIONS. 


By  FREDERICK  DENISON  MAURICE,  M..K  — Continued. 

The  Conscience.     Lectures  on  Casuistry,  delivered  in  the  Univer- 
sity of  Cambridge.     Second  Edition.     i2mo.     $1.75. 

The  Patriarchs  and  Lawgivers  of  the  Old  Testament.     Fourth 

Edition.     i2mo.     $1.75. 

The  Religions  of  the  World  and  their  Relations  to  Christianity. 

Fifth  Edition.     i2mo.     $1.75. 

The  Friendship  of  Books,  and  other  Lectures.     Edited,  with 

Preface,  by  Thomas  Hughes.     i2mo.     $2.00. 

On  the  Sabbath  Day;  the  Character  of  the  Warrior;  and  on 

THE  INTERPRETATION  OF  HISTORY.     i6mo.     75  cents. 

The  Lord's  Prayer,  the  Creed,  and  the  Commandments.     A 

Manual  for  Parents  and  Schoohnasters.    To  which  is  added  the  Order  of  the 
Scriptures.     i8mo.     40  cents. 


By  Rev.   CHARLES  KINGSLEY,   M.A., 

Late  Canon  of  Westminster. 

Village  and  Town  and  Country  Sermons,     i2mo.     $1.75. 
Sermons  on  National  Subjects,  and   the  King  of  the  Earth. 

i2mo.     $1.75. 

Sermons  for  the  Times.     i2mo.     $51.75. 

Good  News  of  God.     i2mo.     fi.75. 

The  Gospel  of  the  Pentateuch  and  David.     i2nio.     $1.75. 

The  Water  of  Life,  and  other  Sermons.     i2mo.     fi.75. 

Discipline,  and  other  Sermons.     i2mo.     $1.75. 

Westminster  Sermons.      i2mo.     $1.75. 


MACMILLAN     &    CO.,    NEW    YORK. 


MACMILLAN    &    CO.'S    PUBLICATIONS. 


The  Evidential  Value  of  the  Holy  Eucharist.     Being  the  Boyle 

I  ectures  for  1879,  1880,  delivered  in  the  Chapel  Royal,  Whitehall.  By  the 
Rev.  George  Frkuekick  Maclear,  D.D.,  Warden  of  St.  Augustine  s 
College,  Canterbury.     i2mo.     $1.75- 


By  ARCHDEACON    HARE. 

The  Victory  of  Faith.     Edited  by  Prof.  Plumptke.     With   Intro- 
ductory Notes  by  the  late  Prof.  Maurice  and  the  late  Dean  Stanlev.    1  hird 


;s  by 
Edition,     i^mo. 


The  Mission  of  the  Comforter.    With  Notes.     New  Edition.     Ed- 
ited by  Prof.  E.  H.  Plumptke.     i2mo.     $2.50. 


By  the    Rev.   HUGH    MACMILLAN. 

Two  Worlds  are  Ours.     Globe  8vo.     $1.75- 

The  True  Vine;  or,  the    Analogies    of   our    Lord's    Allegory. 

Fourth  Edition.     $1.75- 

Bible  Teachings  in  Nature.     Twelfth  Edition,     ili.75. 

The  Sabbath  of  the  Fields.     A  sequel  to  "Bible  Teachings  in  Na- 
ture."   fi.75. 
The  Ministry  of  Nature.      Fourth  Edition,     ii.75. 

The  Marriage  in  Cana.     ^1.50. 


By  the  Rev.   ALEXANDER   MACLAREN,   LL.D. 
Sermons    Preached    at    Manchester.        Sixth    Edition.       Fcap. 
A  Second  Series  of  Sermons  Preached  at  Manchester.     Fourth 

Edition.      $i-25- 

A  Third  Series  of  Sermons  Preached  at  Manchester,     .f  1.25. 
The  Secret  of  Power,  and  other  Sermons.     Preached  at   Man- 

ihi'Stcr.     $i.25. 

Worh-Day    Evening     Addresses.       Delivered    in    Manchester. 

75  Cents. 
A  Year's  Ministry.      First  Series.      i2mo.     $1.50. 


MACMILLAN   &   CO.,  NEW  YORK. 


THE  SACRED  BOOKS  OF  THE  EAST. 

Translated    by   various    Oriental    Scholars,    and    edited   by   F.    Max 

MiJLLER. 


Vol.1.    The  Upanishads.    Translated  by  F.  Max  Muller.    Parti.    8vo.    $2.75. 

Vol.  II.  The  Sacred  Laws  of  the  Aryas.  Translated  by  Georg  Buhlek, 
Part  I.  "  Apastamba  and  Gautama."     $2.75. 

Vol.  III.  The  Sacred  Books  of  China.  The  Texts  of  Confucianism.  Trans- 
lated by  James  Legge.     Part  I.     8vo.     $3.25. 

Vol.  IV.  The  Zend-Avesta.  Translated  by  James  Darmesteter.  Part  I. 
"The  Vendidad."     8vo.     ^2.75. 

Vol.  V.     Pahlavi  Texts.     Translated  by  C.  W.  West.     Part  I.     "  The  P.undahis 

— Bahman  Vast  and  Shayast  la-shayast."     Bvo.     $3.25. 
Vol.  VI  and  IX.     The  Qur'an.     Parts  I  and  II.     Translated  by  C.  H.   Palmer. 

2  vols.  8vo.     $5.25. 

Vol.  VII,  The  Institutes  of  Vishnu.  Translated  bv  Julus  Jolly.  Bvo. 
$2.75. 

Vol.  VIII.  The  Bhagavadgita  with  the  Sanatsugatiya  and  the  Anugita.  Trans- 
lated by   Kashinath  Tkimbak  Telang.     8vo.     $2.75. 

Vol.  X.  The  Dhammapada.  Translated  from  Pali  by  F.  Max  Muller.  And 
the  Sutta  Nipata.  Translated  by  V.  Fausboll.  Being  Canonical  Books  of 
the  Buddhists.     8vo.     $2.75. 

Vol.  XI.  Buddhist  Suttas.  Translated  from  Pali  by  T.  W.'Rhvs  Davids.  8vo. 
$2.75. 

Vol.  XII,     The    Satapatha-Brahmana.     Translated   by  J.    Eggeling.     Part  I. 

Books  1  and  II.     8vo.     $3.25. 
Vol.  XIII.     Vinaya  Texts.     Translated  by  T.  W,  Rhys  Davids  and  H,  Olden - 

BERG,       Part   I.      The   Patirnokkha. — The    Mahavagga.       I    to    IV.      8vo. 

$2.75. 

Vol,  XIV.  The  Sacred  Laws  of  the  Aryas.  Translated  by  Georg  Buhler, 
Part  II.     Vasishtha  and  Baudhayana.     8vo.     ^2,75, 

Vol.  XV.     The  Upanishads.     Translated  by  F.  Max  Muller.     Part  II.     8vo 

$2.75. 

Vol.  XVI.  The  Sacred  Books  of  China.  The  Texts  of  Confucianism.  Trans- 
lated by  James  Legge.     Part  II.     8vo.     $2,75. 

Vol.  XVII,  Vinaya  Texts,  Translated  by  T.  W,  Rhys  Davids  and  H,  Old- 
enberg.     Part  II.     Bvo,     $2.75, 

Vol.  XVIII.  Pahlavi  Texts.  Translated  by  E.  W.' West.  Part  II.  The 
Dadistan-i  Dinik  and  the  Epistles  of  Manuskibar.     8vo.     $3.25. 

Vol.  XIX.  The  F'o-Sho-Hing-Tsau-King,  a  Life  of  Buddha.  By  Asvaghosha 
BoDHiSATTVA.  Translated  into  Chinese  by  Dharmakaksha,  A.D.  420,  and 
from  Chinese  into  English  by  Samuel  Beal.     Bvo.     $2.75. 

Vol.  XXI.  The  Saddharmapu^f^/arika  ;  or  the  Lotus  of  the  True  Law.  Trans- 
lated by  H.  Kern.     Bvo.     $3.25. 

Vol.  XXIII.  The  Zend-Avesta.  Part  II.  The  Sirozahs,  Yast  and  Nyayis. 
Translated  by  James  Darmesteter.     $2.75. 

The  follo7vvig  volumes  are  in  press  : 

Vol.  XX.     Vinaya  Texts,     Translated  from  the  Pali  by  T.  W   Rhys  Davids  and 

Hermann    Oldenberg.      Part  III,     The  KuUavagga,  IV-XII. 
Vol.  XXII       The  Akaranga-Sutra,     Translated  by  H,  Jacobi. 
Vol.  XXI\.     Pahlavi  Texts.     Translated  by  E.  W.  West.     Part  III.     Dina-i 

Mainog-i  Khirad,  Shikund-gu-mani,  and  Sad-dar. 

Second  Series. 

Vol.  XXV.     Manu.     Translated  by  Georg  Buhler.     Part  I. 
Vol,  XXVI.     Manu.     Translated  by  Georg  BtJHLER.     Part  II, 


MACMILLAN  &  CO,,  NEW  YORK. 


Princeton   Theological   Semmary-Speer  Library 


1    1012  01131    1661 


Date  Due 

\M^'' 

m. 

f) 

